Readying for payback
UCLA's football players are readying for payback from the coaching staff in the form of a grueling practice today after Tuesday's senior-led ditch day.
"Was this the best idea? Nah, probably not,'' Bruins linebacker Reggie Carter said. "But we discussed it as a team and we got an extra day off so you have to take advantage of it, rest up, and when it's time to practice, you've got to work extra hard to fix your mistakes and get better.''
So will today's practice be tougher than usual?
"We're prepared for that,'' Carter said. "You make your own decisions, so we made the decision and now we have to deal with it. With the extra meeting time, I'm sure (the coaches) are going to put together a really nice practice."
I hope the coaches work their butts off!
Today is the defining moment of Rick Neuheisel's tenure at UCLA. Either he's the man in control or another pushover coach.
I say bench "team leader" Pat Cowan. Ben Olsen already had a chance and failed so I'd give the ball to Chris Forcier.
Check Forcier's scout page and they say that although his technique needs work, he's a leader with a tough mental attitude.
Use the weak-minded upperclassmen as an example to the new recruits as what they don't want to be. Cut the losers loose and build something respectable from scratch..
This is a stupid tradition and it needs to end. The more I read about this, the more annoyed, upset and disappointed I become. When I was a senior in high school, we had a senior ditch day and I took part in the festivities.......however I also was not on a division 1 football team. Plus only SENIORS took part, not the whole school. I was also 17 at the time, not 22 or 23. I lost a lot of respect for the seniors on this team, especially Cowan and Olson. They’re not kids anymore. They’re young adults…..act like it. Being seniors and quarterbacks, they should not have allowed this to happen. The under classman look up to them and the rest of the seniors and they set an awful example the other day. How can you have a winning team, when your 2 senior quarterbacks, one of whom is the starter, literally led their team in the wrong direction …….off the field, instead of on the field? The fact that they allowed and maybe even encouraged this to happen speaks volumes of their character and leadership skills. Its gonna be their asses on the turf on Saturdays, when the already inexperienced offensive line can’t protect them. I wasn’t shocked either when I found out that Dorrell brought back this stupid tradition. Shame on Cowan, Olson and the rest of the seniors. Bring on Kevin Craft.
One more note for the people who do not think this is a big deal. I read an article today that said some of the high school coaches and recruits who were at practice when this happened where in complete shock and disbelief. They discussed hoping on the 10 and heading over to SC to watch practice cause they know their players would be on the field. God job seniors!
To Pat, Ben, Kyle, Brigham, Bret, Chase, Logan, Micah, and the rest of the seniors: you really disappointed us.
All seniors should be ditched from the starting line up for the opening game.
Micah is a junior.
One final word on 'tradition.' Just because something has always been done i.e. ucla ditch day, does not make it a good thing to continue to do. And after the uproar this has caused, I think this tradition will be scraped by this time next year.
ucla tradition: ditch practice
usc tradition: compete for national title
what's sad is that they still don't see that it was a bad idea to ditch practice... do you see the kids across town ditching practice?
like they say, if you're not getting better, you're getting worse.
lol..he says, "we got an extra day off"
ya sure did. you got an extra day to get worse.
Oh man, I forgot that Tuesday at USC was "Competition Tuesday" where each guy has to earn his starting spot. What if some of the ditch-day recruits or coaches were part of the hundreds that made it to USC?
The first two paragraphs of this article describe Competition Tuesday:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/stewart_mandel/04/18/usc.sanchez/index.html?eref=si_ncaaf