Weekly Answers, Pt. 3 | Inside UCLA with Jack Wang

Check out the latest batch of weekly answers…

1) The Times are saying we had a recruit decommit after Thursday’s game. Have you heard anything about this(I think the name was Jackson)? Is this something we could start seeing more of in the final few games if we keep playing this poorly? – BlitzedFrom what I’ve been told, Darryl Jackson – the OL who originally committed to SMU, then wasn’t admitted and eventually was to sign a grant-in-aid with the Bruins – decommitted from UCLA on Tuesday with a phone call to Rick Neuheisel, and not during or after the game. And yes, of course if UCLA is boated against the Sun Devils and USC, there is the potential for recruits to go elsewhere. Then again, Neuheisel is one of the best recruiters in the game, and I don’t doubt he’ll pull in another strong class.

2) Why has God forsaken the UCLA brethren? Better question – hyperbole notwithstanding – all things considered, who is singularly responsible for the current state of the football program? Neuheisel, Chow, Bullough, Guerrerro, Block, Prince, Brehaut, VB, Pete Carroll, or the fans? (You can only pick one.) – Reformed DroogYou mean not me? It’s not my fault? I thought it was. Thanks, Droog, I knew I could always count on you. No one is singularly responsible. There have been mistakes all around, particularly by you, Droog.

3) Mr. Gold, considering that both Coach Neuheisel and Coach Chow are known for their offensive mind why are they having trouble developing a QB? At the start of 2000 USC has had 3 top ten QBs drafted in the NFL (I know fans are going to cite Leinart as a bust but he did get drafted top ten) and Barkley is looking like the 4th if he leaves after his junior year, but UCLA continues to struggle to develop a QB. – GilliganIt’s quite the quandary, huh? People are forgetting just how much goes into a productive quarterback, though, particularly a statistically productive quarterback. You can have a ton of skill, and still not win. You can have a ton of stats, and throw crucial interceptions. It really takes a lot of things coming together to have a great quarterbacking season, and it just hasn’t happened.

4) Don’t u think some football fans take this too serious, especially since there is a history of .500 football? ucla football will never be USC, LSU, or Texas so way so many fans are nasty is besides me. – AnonymousYes, agreed about a billion percent. It’s impossible to compare football of the past, even as far as the ’80s, to today, in my opinion, and UCLA hasn’t been consistently good for a pretty long time, much less consistently great. Then again, I’ve always tended toward the more realistic outlook than the more optimistic outlook, so when I cheer for a team – like the Denver Broncos – I prepare myself for the worst, and then cautiously hope that I see the positives for the future, if they’re not winning now. And in the case of the Broncos, there’s not a ton of winning now.

5) Hey Jon, have you noticed that CRN is always seen yelling at his quarterbacks on the sideline after every mistake. I never see other coaches do this with such regularity. I understand a coach’s need to address and correct mistakes but yelling in their faces after every miscue, big or small on national TV? Perhaps that’s more appropriate during practice. Your thoughts? – OGBruinIf a college football player can’t take getting yelled at after a bad play, he doesn’t belong in. This isn’t patty-cake, and this isn’t golf. This is Division 1 football. It happens. Deal with it. However, and this is a big however, there CANNOT be screaming without teaching. You can yell and correct, or you can just yell, and it seems like there’s more yelling going on than teaching. That’s a problem.

Reformed Droog

Now it’s about MY mistakes? Have you been talking to my wife? Better you than Tony Parker, I suppose…
Blitzed

Tuesday? They made it sound like the kid went and decommitted after the game ended. >_>

It’s not that fans are nasty because we expect to win every year. Well, actually most seem to expect that. I’ve never understood why people seem to be surprised every year when we don’t compete. We’re just not a program that is a destination for coaches or recruits, and we’re not a program that is going to compete every year. That’s just fact. Now, that said, I don’t think it’s wrong to expect a competitive team every few years for a conference title. The problem is, we’re not getting that at the moment. As it stands we have no reason to think a Bruin team can go out and even put up a fight week in and week out. And that’s why we’re nasty at times. Nobody wants to sit and watch their team go out and roll over every week and make the same tired mistakes.
bruinbiochem06

The reason a lot of us Bruins expect so much from our football team is because we feel ucla has many things going for it that could make it a national powerhouse. For example, ucla is a popular and well respected university, the most applied to university in the US if i’m not mistaken. It is in a great location, Los Angeles, and Los Angeles is one of the best recruiting hotbeds of the nation. We have a decent football tradition, we’re in the top 3 of the Pac 10 overall. Once we get the ball rolling, we will be difficult to stop. UCLA will only have to battle usc for the top local recruit. All the pieces are there, we are a sleeping giant. We just have to wake the f*** up!…

Go Bruins!!!
Anonymous

Uhh…our facilities cannot compare with other teams around the country. UCLA’s campus is a bit small and so our facilities are terrible just cause there isn’t enough space. I stopped by Ann Arbor for a Michigan game and if you compare their facilities to ours it’s like night and day, they blow us out of the water.
12iso

Yeah, all that “teaching” that Mike Stoops and Jim Harbaugh do on the sidelines is the diffence maker.
Blue Bruin

Do you owe Dan Hawkins, the former Colorado coach, some royalties? After all, you stole is line, “It’s Division 1 football!”
Johnny Angel

@Droog and Jon,

Guys, your exchange and comment are the best entertainment I’ve had all week. Thanks.
PeterUCLA

Boy, many of you supposed UCLA fans must be horrible parents: “son, you sometimes get C’s in school, and I am starting to think of you as a C student, so it’s okay to get C’s.” Even if I buy the argument that UCLA has not traditionally been a good football school (which I believe is untrue), that does not mean we should not strive to do well in the sport.

In fact, we do well in almost every other sport in which we field a team. Combine that with our natural advantages of a top-flight academic institution, great location and campus, and overall prestige, and we have all the ingredients to do well on the football field.

Now, for those who keep harping on the fact that UCLA is not a football school, ESPN, which is no friend of the Bruins, ranked us the #16 college football program in the country: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3846173.
http://qfl247.com Matt A

I went to Austin this year, and happened to be on their facilities tour with former Bruin great LB Robert Thomas. He said some NFL teams were not as good as the Texas facilities. It pains me to say this, but I think our expectations of our beloved Bruins are a bit too lofty, overall. Of course, now can be the start of something good as our program is ascending (in recruiting, at least) and $c is descending. But do keep in mind that our academic standards, public funding, and facilities will always hinder us at least slightly.
Blitzed

@Peter, Top recruits do not care about academics. UCLA is not a destination school for top recruits. That’s just the way it is. Prestige? Nobody wants to play for a school because of prestige when they can’t win a game. Even in the article it says we haven’t one a major bowl since ’88 and have only been to one major bowl in the last 12 years. That’s abysmal. That is not the mark of a successful football program. You can rationalize it however you want but it doesn’t change facts. And fact is we’re not a school that is going to compete every year. Expecting it otherwise is just delusional.
PeterUCLA

Hey @Bitched, you do not know what you’re talking about. While some recruits might not care about academics, most parents do. And, as any fool would know (but you’re probably an $C guy, so let me explain), parents weigh very heavily on a recruit’s decision.

By the way, can you even write in proper English, Mr. “it says we haven’t one [sic] a major bowl since ’88″?

Anyhow, we kicked your alma mater’s ass for 8 years in a row during the 90s and were one game away from the first BCS championship game. You obviously know nothing of recent history, either.