UCLA thrown off
MANHATTAN, KAN. -
Norm Chow was incredulous, disbelieving, shaking his head when told his wide receivers dropped eight passes in UCLA's 31-22 loss to Kansas State on Saturday afternoon at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
"We dropped what, a half a dozen balls? Eight?!" Chow said, clearly upset. "That does (surprise me); that's our most experienced group."
And it is, with juniors Nelson Rosario and Taylor Embree leading a talented unit that includes junior transfer Josh Smith and redshirt freshman Ricky Marvray, who caught the team's lone touchdown pass from Kevin Prince late in the game.
But this was never going to be an aerial battle, that much is certain.
It was two passing attacks that lacked rhythm and pop, paper airplanes, not a dogfight, just a couple of dogs.
Prince was rusty after returning for just a few practices following a three-week layoff to heal a sprained oblique muscle, overthrowing wideouts and tossing two interceptions while completing just 9-of-26 passes for 120 yards and the touchdown.
But even when Prince was crisp, his targets were flaky.
Sophomore F-back Morrell Presley dropped the first two passes of the game and Prince overthrew Embree on the next, a quick three-and-out making fans question the efficiency of the Pistol offense just minutes into the game.
"That wasn't one of our concerns going in," Neuheisel said. "We thought we'd catch the ball well. But we did not answer the call."
No, the phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing.
Rosario finished with just three grabs for 29 yards, Embree had one catch for eight yards, and Marvray's 29-yard touchdown catch was the team's only other completion to a receiver.
With Prince gone for so long, the worry was the timing, and it showed.
But Prince also struggled throwing across his body and on the run, the rust evident, as he only resumed attempting such passes toward the end of last week.
"He needs to make those throws," Chow said. "We talk all the time about the fact that there was a study done once, and over 70 percent of pass plays that are made are not made like they're drawn up in the book. We try to practice some of those things, but he needs to hit those. There are no excuses for those."
And Prince isn't one for excuses anyway.
He won't blame his receivers and he won't blame his back.
"It's tough, but it happens," Prince said. "I'm not exactly putting the ball on them every play, and some of those were tough catches. We just have to keep plugging along. That's something that can't get you down.
"That's something that won't happen very often the rest of the season, I can guarantee you that."
Coach Rick talked about his QB needed to be sharp in practice and Prince was not sharp. Are we going to live and die by Prince this season?
The latter.
I don't believe Kevin is comfortable in The Revolver. But he didn't seem to be comfortable in last year's scheme, either. Coach Rick may have to look more closely at Richard or Darius. Even without much practice time, I'm sure Darius would be more successful than Kevin in The Revolver.
I love Kevin's fight, but that's getting old...Brehaut made tremendous improvement during the Fall camp, and he should started the game, it was clear from the get go that Prince was way off in him timing.
Brehaut should have came in for the second half of the game after that horrid start Prince had. I'm putting this loss on Coach Neu. Prince's timing just wasn't there, consistently throwing behind or over receivers. There was absolutely no rhythm. The plays and openings were there. The choices made and the lack of execution is what killed this very winnable game.
my two cents:
prince no doubt had some questionable and wtf moments, but he still has the edge over brehaut in my book in terms of managing the game and leading the team. we've all seen how frazzled brehaut was last year in most of his snaps, not to mention this was a road game in a loud stadium. it's too easy to say "oh we should've put brehaut in" because we're imagining the best case scenario in our minds.
the receivers were bad today. seriously, borderline joke status. hope that this is the worst it'll be for the rest of the season. PS why did we only have one pass to a tight end?
akeem ayers was a beast; was expecting more from rahim moore though.
josh smith is big and fast. i like that kid
tony dye, thigpen, and larimore were impressive
have a feeling we'll be seeing jekyll and hyde aaron hester a lot this season
it'll be interesting to see how the team bounces back next week. in the meantime, i hope the veterans start leading by example and the rooks start growing up fast.
Uh..., should've started with Brehaut, and if he couldn't deal with the environment, then the coaches could've bring Prince in to relieve him. Once the original starter is in there the entire game in a close game, then you could not really go with other options, even given how poorly he played.
Did you not see the same game I saw? Why are you blaming prince for EIGHT dropped balls?????
@danny, true the Bruins had eight dropped balls but of those eight dropped about 5 were thrown behind the receivers and although they did get their hands on them, the DBs were all over the receivers. Most of the incomplete passes were overthrown and underthrown and he also does not have the speed to keep the ball on the option. I would give him one more start and if he doesn't show improvement, Brehaut can no longer be ignored, even if Prince is Norm's favorite.
Also, I didn't see Riley in the game, why?
Backup QBs are the most popular guys in the world, but Brehaut is nowhere close to Prince in knowing the offense. Wanna see a bunch of turnovers, go ahead and get Brehaut in there. You can't armchair QB everything, and if Brehaut was better he'd start. He isn't.
how can Brehaut do any worse than Prince? Prince had 1 fumble and 2 interceptions?!
What we saw of Prince Saturday was the same as last year... He is who he is. I don't see it getting better... Give Brehaut the chance. He grew by leaps and bounds with the bulk of the reps during the summer, and he continues to improve. His upside is huge... By the way, a lot of those dropped balls Saturday were thrown behind the receivers. Yeah, they should have been caught, but they were not good passes... Chow can find a new dentist.