UCLA ready to wrangle the Longhorns again

There came a certain point in UCLA's 34-12 win at Texas last season when it became obvious that the Bruins were not just beating the Longhorns, but manhandling them.
Read that again.

The camembert soft UCLA Bruins physically dominated the beef-eating, snot-rocketing, mouth-frothing Texas Longhorns, not just ekeing out a win but bending the then-No. 7-ranked good ol' boys into submission.

Offensive line coach Bob Palcic realized it around the second half, as his unit was imposing its will over a more experienced, highly touted defensive line.

Running backs coach Wayne Moses needed until after the game to review the film of the win to be convinced.
Johnathan Franklin, though, knew it on Tuesday. Not the Tuesday following the game, but before it.

"It was no surprise," Franklin said of the team's then-shocking throttling of the Longhorns. "The Tuesday we came out for practice, we believed it, we knew it. We went out there, and we wanted to do it. We wanted to prove a point. We wanted to turn this program around. We knew we couldn't just barely win. We had to do something magical to prove a point."
Point made...temporarily at least.

It turned out, the Horns weren't quite so long last season, cut down to size in a year of transition, falling to 5-7 after being the toast of football for more than a decade. After the season, the Longhorns welcomed six new coaches.

Now as the Bruins prepare to face a vastly different team at 12:30 today at the Rose Bowl, a team that like them, features two new coordinators in defensive guru Manny Diaz and co-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin, they see even more new faces.

"They're the same guys, but they have a different scheme," offensive coordinator Mike Johnson said. "They're playing faster, a little harder than they did last year. It's a new game. A new season. Everything is new over there. We have to go out there and establish ourselves again to have the same result."

While the UCLA defense is preparing for a Texas offense that features new quarterbacks in Case McCoy and David Ash, who will split duties after the benching of Garrett Gilbert during a 17-16 win over BYU last weekend, the Bruin offense will have to adjust to a Texas defense that won't be caught by surprise.

Kevin Prince returns from a near-seven-quarter absence - he's been sidelined since early in the second quarter of the team's season opener at Houston with a shoulder sprain - to lead a unit that exploited the Longhorns' unfamiliarity with the Pistol offense to the tune of 264 rushing yards.

"Schematically we had a head start," UCLA head coach Rick Neuheisel said. "But they have a year to look at that film. Schematically I don't think they'll be in the positions they were last year. It's going to require much better execution and a much more complete plan."

Execution has not been the Bruins strong suit in their 1-1 start.

Against Houston in Week 1, the UCLA defense tackled horribly and was often found out of position as Case Keenum picked it apart in a 38-34 loss. Last week in a 27-17 win over San Jose State, the Bruins sputtered offensively for much of the game and let up three big runs to the Spartans.

Facing the No. 23-ranked Longhorns who will surely be ornery from last year's loss, that kind of execution is unacceptable.

"This year, they're going to be coming back with that taste in the back of their mouth," senior wide receiver Taylor Embree said. "They got punched in the mouth last year. They have all those five-star recruits...we know they're going to battle this year."