What do you make of the Bruins (coaches and players) talking a really good game and then not backing it up? All week we heard a lot about "respecting the game" and "playing hard regardless of the opponent". How this year's team "feels disrespected" and "is hungry to show what it can do"...blah blah blah. And then in the second week of the season we get a total lackluster effort - from the whole team.

I hate to sound jaded but...I've seen this movie before. What say you?

You dont sound jaded. You are not the only reporter to point out the talk. Kevin Modesti at LA Daily News (not meant to plug here, http://tinyurl.com/kk5ga) said the same thing at the start of the season. I think this coaching staff has its work cut out this season. They had better manage expectations quickly before this season implodes on itself, on the weight of their talk.

Year after year, and not only with Dorrell, the Bruins play down to the level of their competition. It desn't make sense that a program with so much to prove can take anyone lightly. There is much to be learned from our cross town rivals.

The coaches don't seem to put that 'take no prisoners' mentality into play. I too am tired of hearing about how good each opponent is, I'd rather hear that the team is ready to tear apart its opponent.

At least Guerrero got the message on BB coaching hiring. It looks as if the baseball program has a good start as well. You would think that football is a small $$ sport the way UCLA hires its coaches. I am sure KD is a nice guy who tries hard, but.......

Wow, Brian that was a brutal assessment. The RBs run for over 300 yards and they get a "B"? The offensive line opens some big holes and granted made some mistakes in picking up blitzes and yet you give them a "C-"? And the receivers played better than Ben Olson who you gave both a "D", and the secondary may not have been all that challenged, but don't deserve a "C-" either based on the yards given up. And the LBs played decently as well.

QB - D, I agree if Olson is the weak link for this team that's good. He still showed signs of his talent and scrambled pretty well. Turnovers need to be addressed.

RBs - A- Markey and Bell ran wild. Who cares if they don't run a 4.3 forty? Geez, were we spoiled by M. Drew or what? Markey averaged 9 yards a carry didn't he?

Receivers - C+, Not much to work with from Ben. Didn't see them drop passes like we did against Utah. Some nice TD catches.

Offensive Line- B-, Yes, it was Rice, but nice holes. They need to work on recognizing blitzes, several delayed blitzes where linemen were concentrating on double teaming when their guy came in late. Could count on them late when the game got close to run down the clock with runs.

Defensive Line - B+/A-, are you kidding me? Hickman was great and stymied the Rice runs into the line. Kevin Brown also was heard from and Moline seemed to have a nice game too.

Linebackers- C, Ok they need to work on the option a little bit, QB or pitch man? A couple of times we didn't do too well here, but they were there to make the stops the DL slowed down.

Secondary? C+, I didn't see a bad game like you did. A few missed assignments, 1 on the long run where the safety came up too early to make a play.

Special Teams D, Only Medlock keeps this unit from failing. Punt returns bad, kickoff unit bad. Turnovers on special teams unacceptable. Yuck.

Coaching C-, We came out strong, but didn't get the TDs we'd have liked in the Red Zone. Coaches didn't panick and still ran the ball well. I liked the "shovel pass" ... Walker did a great job and several times you saw the entire unit swarming to the ball. You have like the D attitude that resulted in no score for Rice when they got the ball on the 2 yard line.

Right now, from my point of view, nothing to worry about.

Happy4LA,

Thanks for the breakdown of your grades. Some interesting points. Looking at the grades and calculating them, UCLA graded out to a C+ according to you. With C being average, does that mean UCLA played an above average game?

Brian:

Parting shot as I likely won't be back this way.
Your comments clearly reflect that either you're angry that you didn't get the SC gig or you still carry an East Coast bias. Your ratings are a rehash of stats with absolutely no insight. Constuctive criticism: drop the overused C- stuff.
I am curious as to what your thoughts are/were about what appeared to be a well-conceived defense by Rice that clearly confused an inexperienced QB. Not sure that our coaching deserved a D, but UCLA was definitely outcoached on Sat night.

Yaknow, I've been following the Bruins since Dennis Dummit was taking snaps, and since Sam Dickerson caught his out of bounds back breaker in the late 60's. The big knock on the Bruin program is and frequently has been the number of folks like several of the types up above who want to start bitchin' about things as early as possible. At the games, if the grumbling hasn't started by the second offensive series, then the "fans" are either under the weather, or just late in getting there.

Maybe its "sophisticated L.A.;" maybe its the inevitable comparisons with the basketball program; maybe its just generalized discontent, but there's too doggone much of it. Dorrell's doing a decent job. Recruiting is up, morale/discipline on the team is up, and performance on defense especially is much stronger after 2 games this year than last. The main milestones left for Dorrell to crack are (1) beating the bunch cross-town (still may be awhile; and, (2) winning the Pac-10 title ("2" definitely goes through "1"). Give the griping a rest, support your team (and/or your school), or stay home and watch the history channel.

Cmon now, with the attitude 1madbruin has we would still have Lavin and Toledo. Think about that. We wouldnt have your precious coach Dorrell if it werent for such honest discussions about the progress of our football team under Toledo. Honest assessments also gave us Howland, and nearly another national championship, AND top national recruits signing early to play in Westwood. So the griping that needs to stop is coming from you.

KD is not winning the recruiting war. For your information, a look at the EVIDENCE (those of us on the DumpDorrell side actually use those darn things called facts to support our case) provides a strong case that UCLA recruiting has DECLINED under Dorrell. Nestor at Bruinsnation.com has a full discussion: http://tinyurl.com/gbm9d

Brian, yes, I thought the team overall did play to a C+. We had 1 punt the entire game (which was the last series). However, we lost the turnover game at QB and special teams. Those poor performances overshadowed the pretty good performances in other areas. Last year I was pretty worried after the Rice and SDSU games, but this year I'm more opitmistic after the Rice game because I'm not worried about team's exploiting our weaknesses. Last year it was defense and the DL.

Fair enough Happy4LA. We shall agree to disagree on a few things.

Wow...that was an unexplainable loss. Oh, we won? It's funny how a notorious Karl Dorrell internet hater comes onto the blog to plug his cause at the first off-performance. There were two real problems with the game Saturday as I see it: 1) turnovers, drive-killing penalties, and mistakes led to four field goals out of six scoring drives and 2) the emphasis on the running game seemed to put the passing game out of synch. Perhaps the coaches felt this was a scrimmage-like game and wanted to emphasize their ability to run the ball but it did seem to disrupt the team's, specifically Ben Olson's, rhythm. The defense played well, although there were some mistakes made (mentioned in your report) that gave Rice new life. While I like the make up of this team and their determination, it's a young team and a work-in-progress. They won't play perfectly every game (like every other team in the country), but if they continue to improve and eliminate errors (!!!), they can enjoy a very good season.

I disagree on one point, Brian; the best things you can say about this game is that we won ugly and we can learn from it without taking a loss.

Give it up crybabies, Dorrell is here to stay. Maybe you should find a new team to root for DumpDorrell, the Bruins don't need/want people like you pretending to root for them. Get lost

Mike ... smart comment, piercing insight and anaylsis. I bet you said the same thing in 2002, "Give it up crybabies, Lavin is here to stay!" You are broken record.