A Call for Bruin Pride

Now that it’s all over, we can take a look back at the season that was for the UCLA football team. Although it would be nice to think that UCLA had turned the corner and was on the way to improvement, their last performance leaves a somewhat shaky mark on the season. Granted, it wasn’t as if they were favored to win the game against the two-time defending National Champions. But they were expected to compete, and that they did not do.

Throughout the season there were two camps of thought on the UCLA football team. Some thought that they were basically lucky, that they were just taking advantage of a weak schedule (avoided Oregon, Cal at home BARELY), sleepwalking through games and trying to flip the switch in the fourth. That they were preying on teams going through lean years for premier programs (Oklahoma was definitely not the team that they have been in seasons past). Others were a little more optimistic, seeing the maturation and progression of stars Drew Olson, Marcedes Lewis, and Maurice Drew. Thinking that coach Karl Dorrell’s system was finally taking effect, that this season was a sign of good things to come.

With a team in flux like UCLA is, you look for signs… something that lets one see what type of team they have. Two things in particular strike us as we look back.

1. Lack of defense. For any team to compete, you need to at least have the ability to give the other team problems on the defensive end. Whether it be stopping the run or a super secondary you need to be able to make stops. UCLA has lacked that ability for as long as we care to remember. That is a disturbing trend, and one that showed its ugly head prominently in the Bruins two crushing defeats.

2. Post season slumps. UCLA has lost four of their last five bowl games and six of their last ten. They haven’t won the Rose Bowl since 1986… ’86?!?!? That sorry post-season history is another major reason why the Bruins can’t be taken seriously as contenders. You have to actually WIN something to be considered a player.

Is the coach to blame for the mess? The AD? We don’t think it matters at this point. But as we head into yet another game (Sun Bowl) against another high powered offense (the high scoring Northwestern Wildcats), lets hope that the team can show some real signs of life, instead of signs of the same old same old.