UCLA-BYU report card

Who can argue with those marks? The game was a complete failure across the board.

I see you put our record as 2-0. Wishful thinking.

I have watched UCLA since the...well a long time now and I have never seen a team look this bad. Pepperdine could have beaten us and they don't even play football.
Every team has a game in them like the one we just saw. Hopefully it is a fluke and we can begin to resemble a team again next week against UA.
I can't blame the coaches. If you don't have the talent noone can coach them to a victory. Yet the coaches seemed to be lost in this game as well. Hard to figure.
UCLA needs AFLAC and they need it now!
Great work Brian. You still don't get my emails because of your filter system but I am doing okay. I know you asked. Good days mixed with bad ones. It is what it is! Keep up the great work. Ted

A+ all around! The Bruins played hard and we shouldn't be so negative and mean to these young kids. Afterall, they are ONLY kids. Football is meaningless, and their education is far more important that our team winning any games.

A+ Bruins! A+!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

A+ all around! The Bruins played hard and we shouldn't be so negative and mean to these young kids. Afterall, they are ONLY kids. Football is meaningless, and their education is far more important that our team winning any games.

A+ Bruins! A+!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

You were too generous Brian. Should be F minuses across the board...worst loss in 80 years. How depressing.

F's all across the board. I'm not sure that this loss should be blamed on "lack of talent". I think that the bulk of BYU's team is probably made up of 2 and 3 star rated atheletes. However, the difference is they have been coached properly for years and have developed into a TEAM.

Last year I recall the Utah players saying after the game that they knew that UCLA was soft after contact in the first quarter. I wonder what the BYU players are saying this year.

What's crazy is that BYU could have won that game 100-0 if they hadn't taken their foot off the gas so early.

As the previous poster said, F- across the board. That is, of course, unless the gameplan was to come out flat, tired, and sloppy. In that case, A+.

I've said all along that we are soft. Noone listens to me. Everyone just calls me a "non-fan" whenever I am critical of the team.

VB,

You need to get back to CBS, there are APB on you by the entire BYU's clan...oops I meant fans.

I'm both a UCLA fan and a BYU fan (have degrees from both), so maybe I'm a bit more objective than some. From my view, it was the 3 nearly consecutive turnovers that really sunk the Bruins. That, and the weak o-line made it game over in the 2nd quarter. The defense basically died from being on the field for waaay too long, so I think it's tough to give them an accurate grade. I don't think the Bruins are going to overwhelm many teams in offensive shootouts this year, but I do think that if they can get something of a running game to keep some of the pressure off of Craft, the defense will keep games close enough to win in the 4th quarter, like against Tennessee.

The kids fought to the end, CB - but I still think the quote Brian cited from Carter summed everything up - BYU beat us every possible way. I wasn't as bummed as I was over the game at Utah or even at Wsu because we kept fighting but I look at this one as one in which we should acknowledge what we did wrong and what we couldn't do and give earned credit to Bronco Mendenhall, his staff, and the BYU players. They had perfect schemes and executed brilliantly. Add that it was their "game of the year" - the one they hope will catch the eyes of those who decide BCS bowl games and they had been pointing toward it since last winter, and they got us at home, and it created a perfect storm. Our schemes didn't work and our players didn't get the job done, so sure, grades around D and F make sense. But I credit BYU because they earned it and I hope DeWayne Walker learned from the game and we do a LOT better against Arizona this week (another spread offense)

Terrible energy, terrible execution and seemingly a bit of overconfidence going into the game (UT win and 2 close games last year may have lulled the team into a false sense of security). There is never an excuse for 59-0, and the poster citing BYU's 2 & 3 star recruits is right; UCLA's classes have outranked BYU's each of the last four years. He was also correct that 3 YEARS in BYU's system (not 3 games) were a distinct advantage.

Everyone sucked eggs this game, most notably Walker's normally staunch defense. Now, suck it up and beat Arizona (no easy task, imo)

Go ahead and be as critical of the team as you'd like VB. Just try to provide an analysis level higher than that of your average 8th grader.

People might take you more seriously that way. Here is an example:

Man that was a shameful day to be a Bruin! I think the effort was there but there is A LOT of work to do if we're really going to get this program back to what it should be capable of.

The contrast between weeks 1 and 2 was eerily similar to the erratic roller-coaster of the Dorrell regime.

Thank goodness its only week 2. Hopefully the boys learn something here and we'll be able to see some real development when we look back at the end of the season.

We've got a long way to go...but let's not be too myopic about it and look at the big picture...

I think giving a "D" to the running backs is quite a gift. I don't care how bad the o-line is... a running back should be able to get more than 9 yards of rushing over an entire game.

If one person deserves blame over anyone else it is Terrence Austin. This bum has now fumbled away a kick in three of our last four games (all losses). And each fumble was at a critical time when momentum was on the line. We couldn't recover against SC, we nearly recovered in the Las Vegas Bowl, and we were blown away Saturday. Austin should never be allowed to put his hands on a kickoff or punt as long as he has eligibility remaining. He is the epitome of the soft Bruin and should be called out accordingly. We are the laughing stock of college football, and more importantly, of L.A.

For those of you complaining about not getting Versus - you are the lucky ones.

Yeah, it was a bad time to fumble. But Austin wasn't responsible for covering any of their receivers.

Win as a team, lose as a team.

Letter grades aren't specific enough for this case. Team: F (24%)
Versus tv coverage: F (9%)

Can't blame that on T Austin or any other individual player. That was a definite TEAM loss. You don't lose 59-0 because of one or two players...you lose that way because of everyone.

I think the only positive that can be said is that it simply can't get any worse than this. We've hit rock bottom this past week. Gotta keep looking forward and do our best!

Go Bruins!

It is a bit of a non sequitur to rate coaches for any single game, considering what, you know, caoching entails. But it was especially non sensical in the BYU/UCLA game. BYU has been coached consistently with most of the players they fielded last week for the past three years. But give the players cedit for near perfect execution. No amount of coaching expertise was going to make any difference on the UCLA side where the players just failed to execute the plays.

Using the simplistic school grading system, by
conventional format,allowed you to rate the coaches. The use of grades and your reference to the fact that the Bruins may resemble the Bruins of ten years ago was, in effect, nothing more than a cheap shot. And I am not exonorating your poor judgement by participating in your poll.

Motivating the players is an aspect of coaching. UCLA was noticeably flat and devoid of energy from the outset. I don't think anyone is saying "Fire Neu, Chow or Walker (actually, some imbeciles are saying to fire Walker)", but you don't lose 59-0 if your players are laying it on the line.

Why doens't anyone mention the real cause of this miserable failure? Newheisel. How many program is this guy going to be allowed to ruin before he has to take a job cleaning the litter in the stands?

The good news from the weekend...from Peter King at SI

Defensive Player of the Week

Chris Horton, S, Washington. The seventh-round pick from UCLA, playing because of an injury to Redskins starter Reed Doughty, had two interceptions and recovered a fumble, accounting for three takeaways in Washington's narrow win over the Saints. Washington doesn't usually get much credit for its drafts, but Horton played the biggest role of any defender in helping repel the prolific Drew Brees at FedEx Field.

UCLA is better than they showed on Saturday. If BYU and UCLA played again, I still think that BYU wins, but the score would be much closer. For the game on Saturday the ball bounced BYU's way. We had 2 fumbles where we recovered, and a pick6 that was broken up by a good play by our recievers. Had those plays gone the other way with UCLA covering the fumbles this game would have been closer.

I agree with Coach Wooden that the team should focus on improving each play at each position. I'd like to see UCLA win out from this point. Go Bruins, Beat SC!

The funny thing is the Pac 10 does not respect the Mountain West Conference. They think that the Pac 10 is a superior conference. This last weekend the Mountain West Conference vs Pac 10 4-0. BYU just out played and out coached UCLA. BYU last 5 games vs Pac 10 4-1. The BSC system causes alot of the problems. A non BSC team has to go undefeat to get a chance for one BSC spot. Hard task to go undefeated, but not required for BSC teams. Bad system! What a great weekend for the MWC. Go BYU