Latest Ucla Football Stories
Posted: Jul 7th 2008 10:10 AM ET by Sean Hawkins (RSS feed)
Filed Under: UCLA Football, Pac 10
When you are an injury-prone quarterback coming up on your last season, you look for anything positive at this point. And when you are UCLA's new coaching staff, a group that suffered through losing both top quarterbacks on consecutive plays during the final spring practice, hope can be a fleeting thought that comes and goes. But finally, some good news out of Bruin-land, as UCLA's
Ben Olson has officially started down the comeback trail.
Olson broke his foot in the spring, literally one play after incumbent starter Patrick Cowan blew out his ACL and was lost for the 2008 season. After surgery to insert a screw in Olson's foot and a couple of months of rehab,
Olson appears to be making some progress, as he was cleared for practice late last week. Olson started some incremental treadmill training, running for two-minute segments while walking for one minute in-between.
"It's a huge relief," Olson said. "Any time you get hurt, you never know how long it will take. You question if you will ever be back. It's nice to feel that it's progressing and we're moving forward."
While Olson is relieved, the coaching staff led by Norm Chow has to be breathing a lot easier. The pickings behind Olson are slim, with San Diego State transfer Kevin Craft currently slated as the backup and redshirt frosh Chris Forcier still without a collegiate pass attempt. And, while a couple of minutes jogging on the treadmill are a little different than, say, trying to get out of the way of an oncoming pass-rush with only a couple of experienced linemen to protect you, well, still, baby steps are better than no steps at all.
Posted: Jun 25th 2008 9:39 AM ET by Sean Hawkins (RSS feed)
Filed Under: UCLA Football, Pac 10
The UCLA offense is a little thin these days, what with starting quarterback Patrick Cowan and backup Ben Olson already nursing various injuries. Cowan is actually lost for the entire 2008 season after tearing his ACL, and Olson suffered a broken right foot late in spring ball and should miss most of the off-season training sessions. But now the offensive line has joined in, as projected starting right tackle Sean Sheller could be on the shelf for some time.
According to the LA Times, Sheller was injured over the weekend while riding an ATV. He suffered an open wound on his left ankle as well as an undisclosed injury to his left knee. An MRI is pending on the knee to determine how much damage was actually done in the accident.
An interesting angle is that the LA Times also reports in the same story that UCLA gained a JC tackle in Donovan Edwards. Edwards is a late signee who could be eligible to play immediately this fall, pending summer school results.
The troubling thing for UCLA is what this does to an already-thin offensive line. It's bad enough when you are without a couple of QB's and it's only June. But the Bruins were already down to two returning starters up front with the "Micah" duo of Micah Reed at center and Micah Kia at left tackle. Overall eight of the top 10 listed on the offensive line depth chart didn't even play a single snap last year, so potentially losing Sheller isn't exactly good news.
Posted: Jun 18th 2008 4:29 PM ET by Brian Cook (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Alabama Football, Auburn Football, Iowa Football, Penn State Football, UCLA Football, Blogs
A regular trip through the college football blogosphere.
1. That list is how long? A list of
Penn State malfeasance since 2002 has been kicking around message boards for the past few weeks and may have even spurred ESPN to sic Outside the Lines on the Nits. It has 61(!!!) separate incidents featuring Penn State players and the long arm of the law. Or, sometimes, the long arm of nothing in particular:
53. Joe Paterno - Road Rage - No Charges
As much as we all love the possibly apocryphal
JoePa road rage incident, it resulted in no charges and, uh, did not involve a Penn State player.
Many of the other incidents are arrests that resulted in acquittals or college kids getting busted for holding a half-full Natty Lite, which is punishment in an of itself. The list is overstated. But how much?
Run Up The Score breaks it down for you. The general conclusion:
All in all, the Penn State Nittany Lions don't have a widespread, 1988 Miami Hurricanes style criminal gang disguised in plain football uniforms. They have a drinking and fighting problem. Players aren't shooting guns or selling drugs. They're getting loaded and brawling. While I take modest comfort in the fact that the football roster doesn't double as a suspect list from The Wire, there is still a rather obvious behavioral problem within the program.
This is probably because the man they should fear more than any other is kind of ancient and "works from home."
Posted: May 14th 2008 3:17 PM ET by Mark Hasty (RSS feed)
Filed Under: UCLA Football, Big 10, Pac 10, Bowl Games, NCAA FB History, Los Angeles, Illinois Football
FanHouse is counting down the ten best, ten worst, and ten weirdest moments in the history of Big Ten football.
Above: Rick Neuheisel (right) and Troy Aikman in Neuheisel's first coaching stint at UCLA.
Not many people remember it, but for a few years in the early 1980s, the Big Ten played a full round-robin schedule, as opposed to the current "skip the same two teams for two years in a row" format that has been in place since Penn State joined the conference. During that brief period, one team actually managed to defeat all nine of its conference opponents: Mike White's Fighting Illini, in the 1983 season. The Angry Indigenous Woodlands People dropped their first game to Missouri, then ran off ten straight wins, entering the Granddaddy of Them All 10-1 and ranked fourth in the nation.
And on the other side of the field? Terry Donahue's UCLA Bruins, a team so dazzlingly awesome they went 0-3 in their non-conference games. The doddering Bruins won the Pac-10 almost by default that season; they were 6-1-1 in conference play (ties were still allowed back then), and 6-4-1 overall. (Can you imagine the outcry today if a six-win team got a BCS berth?)
So, obviously, there was no hope for the Bruins. You'll note, however, that this game wound up on the Big Ten's "worst moments," and of course there's a reason for that.
Posted: Apr 29th 2008 12:01 PM ET by Scott Olin Schmidt (RSS feed)
Filed Under: UCLA Football, Pac 10, NCAA FB Injuries, Los Angeles
Last year, the University of California at Los Angeles went through four starting quarterbacks in a season which failed to meet expectations. New head coach
Rick Neuheisel and offensive coordinator
Norm Chow had hoped to turn the tide and avoid any quarterback controversy, naming
Pat Cowan the starter in Spring Practice.
But just days after fifth-stringer
Osaar Rashaan declared that he
would start again as UCLA quarterback, he moved up to number three on the depth chart when Cowan and
Ben Olson were
carted off the field with injuries. Cowan, the erstwhile starter, will
miss the 2008 season; Olson must recover from yet another surgery.
Things have gotten so bad that UCLA's coaches are now asking recruit
Kevin Prince to leave school early in order to provide depth at the position. But Prince is still recovering from
reconstructive knee surgery himself, so don't expect this high schooler to be a lucky charm to avoid injuries at the position!
But if things look glum in Westwood, Bruin fans can take consolation that they did not
lose seven first- and second-round players to the NFL Draft!
Posted: Apr 27th 2008 5:15 PM ET by Adam Jacobi (RSS feed)
Filed Under: UCLA Football, Pac 10, NCAA FB Injuries
Pat Cowan has actually never been photographed upright. He's always hurt.We're not sure how Rick Neuheisel envisioned his new team's first season, but it's safe to assume that his ideas all included a decent quarterback at the helm. That, as it turns out, may prove to be presumptuous. The football gods were cruelly rapacious on Thursday, as
two Bruins quarterbacks suffered significant injuries.First, starter Pat Cowan went down with a likely severe knee injury. The to-be-senior had to be carted off, and offensive coordinator Norm Chow
thinks he's toast. When asked if he expected the worst, Chow responded, "Oh, yeah....The way he went down. We've got to wait it out. I'm just telling you my opinion."
"How sure am I that he's done for the year? Well, molten lava came out of his knee after he hurt it, then a sword impaled him," Chow added.*
On the very next play, senior (citizen) playcaller Ben Olsen planted awkwardly and broke a bone in his foot. And lava came out of that too.**
Olsen should be healthy in plenty of time for the season, but UCLA was down to three quarterbacks for last night's spring game. Only converted wideout Osaar Rasshan has thrown a pass in NCAA play thus far (an underwhelming 17-of-45 last season), so it's safe to assume that the Bruins are eagerly anticipating Olsen's recovery.
A word of warning to Neuheisel: Olsen and Cowan both suffered through health problems last season as well, and the resulting 6-6 season was enough to get Karl Dorrell fired. We're not saying UCLA's itching for another firing this soon, but we
are suggesting that the sooner you put Cowan and Olsen on a rocketship and send them into deep space, the sooner you can start building your franchise around a quarterback who won't splinter into a thousand pieces every time the wind blows.
*technically, Chow didn't say any of that, but it'd be great if he did.
**again, technically false, but a boy can dream.Posted: Apr 15th 2008 9:55 PM ET by Brian Grummell (RSS feed)
Filed Under: UCLA Football, Pac 10, The Word
Not a good start as the supposedly cleaned-up coach rebuilds UCLA. From the Daily News' Brian Dohn:
UCLA's football practice is over, long before it was supposed as the players decided to use a long-time tradition and blow off practice after stretching by going over the wall. That said, the players ran through an open gate rather than climb over the wall at Spaulding Field.
UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel knows of the tradition, but basically said it was an odd time for it considering UCLA is installing a new offense and the offensive line needs loads of work.
Also, a number of high school coaches and recruits showed up for the practice, not to mention some referees. The assistant coaches were mostly stunned after Neuheisel visited with the players, then came back on the field to say practice was done.
In one swift act, Neuheisel willingly undermined himself before his players, his coaches and the lifeblood of any program: recruits. Nice work.
Oh, and that's just about the most pathetic school tradition I've ever heard of. The NCAA limits the hours and number of practices schools can arrange, so for UCLA to be wasting a practice like that is troubling.
(Via:
WildWest)
Posted: Apr 9th 2008 11:12 AM ET by Brian Grummell (RSS feed)
Filed Under: UCLA Football, USC Football, Pac 10, The Word
For years there has been talk of USC and UCLA returning to tradition and wearing contrasting uniforms at their rivalry game. Problem is, NCAA rules prohibit this practice and require that the offending team be docked a timeout.
It's a stupid rule, but to date the schools have obliged. It doesn't help that relations grew tense in the last year or two between the programs. Enter
Rick Neuheisel.
In theory, the hyper-competitive Neuheisel should further the divide between the programs, but he and USC coach
Pete Carroll at least publicly seem to respect each other. So much so, in fact, that next year may be an "Nixon visits China" moment in relations between the programs.
USC and UCLA are very close to announcing a novel idea to heat up their rivalry. Both teams will wear their home colors this season at UCLA's home game Dec. 6 in the Rose Bowl.
That means USC will wear maroon. The plan is for the Trojans to be penalized a timeout when they take the field in their homies. UCLA, then, at its first opportunity will call a timeout to even things up. Pete Carroll apparently has signed off on the p.r. strategy. What a way to ramp up the Trojans-Bruins rivalry.
You know what's next? Full diplomatic relations (yeh right!). Until anything happens this is all just talk and cutesy "Americans playing ping pong in China" type ice-breakers floated before the public. Hopefully it happens.
Previously at FanHouse
It's Time to Let USC and UCLA Party Like It's 1969
Posted: Feb 6th 2008 12:18 PM ET by Brian Grummell (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Clemson Football, Georgia Football, UCLA Football, NCAA FB Recruiting, The Word, Oregon State Football
Few things in life are as heartwarming as a lifelong bond between father and son. Playing catch in the backyard. Going fishing. Hell, getting a little homework help. But then young men eventually grow up and gain independence and make decisions that take them away from their fathers.
Nowhere is that more public than in the recruiting game. Many times a player will stick with his father (see Luke Bellotti playing at Oregon for his father Mike Bellotti or quarterback Cody Hawkins heading to Colorado to play for his old man). But while blood may be thicker than water, sometimes blood doesn't have the pull it should.
Last year, Georgia coach Mark Richt's son
Jon Richt pledged to play quarterback for Clemson over his fathers' Dawgs. No doubt a tough decision for a closeknit family like that. The separation continues this year as it is rumored UCLA defensive coordinator
DeWayne Walker's son Kevan, a receiver prospect, will not stick with dear old dad at UCLA but
instead play for the Oregon State Beavers.
The upshot to all of this is that while recruiting is a competitive, sometimes nasty business, coaches recruiting a fellow coaches' son must tone down his pitch which can only help but improve relations between coaches.
Posted: Jan 28th 2008 12:51 PM ET by Brian Grummell (RSS feed)
Filed Under: UCLA Football, Pac 10
Is the UCLA cheerleader sad that he's leaving? Or perplexed at the whole grown man swings incredibly long towel around his head thing? You decide.UCLA's goofy sideline towel-waver guy is retiring. So sad.
Long-time UCLA assistant coach and current assistant director of academic services Ed Kezirian is retiring. He was a 13-year assistant coach under Terry Donahue, and served as the interim coach for the Bruins in the 2002 Las Vegas Bowl after coach Bob Toledo was fired.
To be fair, Kezirian was well-regarded in his administrative post. Plus, he owns the highest win percentage among UCLA head coaches (
look it up!). And he does wave that towel really well. So he's got that going for him.
But it's like that scene from The Office where one-time temporary worker Ryan worries about being "that guy" -- crossword puzzle guy, crazy cat owner guy, etc. -- then ends up setting a small fire and becomes "fire guy". Ed Kezirian is one such guy, Towel Waver Guy.
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