Assorted press conference quotes, notes
UCLA quarterback Kevin Prince on...
On back-dooring into the Pac-12 championship game:
"It's a little weird. Obviously things didn't go the way we wanted last night. We would've preferred to make the conference championship game by winning it outright. But the situation turned out that we have the opportunity to redeem ourselves. We're still excited about the opportunity. Definitely not the way we wanted it to go down."
On moving the ball but scoring zero points:
"Lack of execution when we got down to the red zone. We got it down within 10 yards three different times. We just weren't able to put it in the end zone. That comes down to me. It comes down to me not executing when I needed to. We had a chance to run a couple in that I didn't take advantage of. I'll take responsibility for that."
On working with a short week:
"When we had two weeks to prepare it didn't work so well, so hopefully short week helps us a little better."
On regaining confidence:
"Just have a couple solid days of practice. Sit down, team meeting tomorrow, just refresh and go over what went wrong in the SC game. Just to have a solid day of practice would go a long way in going to help get our confidence back."
Like i said before,what's really sad (and you see this on numerous plays throughout the game) is they called a time out with fourth and goal and down 7-0. Prince turns the wrong way and completely blows up the play by himself. He then has to turn around and he decides to hand off to Coleman and he did not have time to make the correct read. The corner stayed in and he had Anthony Barr, who was in motion all by himself on the flat or even could have ran it in by himself!!! He blew it about 6 different times like that all day. There were many, many reasons they lost but that would have tied the game and given them some confidence instead of giving USC the ball and putting major doubt in our minds. Way to go Senior leader????
First, he's a junior. And we should have recruited a better quarterback. But Prince has heart and he is someone who stands up and takes responsibility for his mistakes. He was still moving his legs with about 5 Trojans trying to tackle him. He just doesn't have tye type of talent to succeed but he is the type of person that you would want in your company after graduation. Great kid. Stand up kid. Deserves better treatment from the fans.
I have said for the past several years, that UCLA does not have good football players.
We have much fewer NFL players than USC, Stanford, Cal, Arizona State, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.
Pretty much: we have a bunch of high-school and junior college level players.
2006 was the last time we had players who could match up with USC's players.
But other than 2005-2006, we have had weak players with poor talent, heart, determination and aggressiveness.
No matter how good a coach is, you cannot win without the horses.
John Wooden won because he had the great players. Phil Jackson won because he had great players. No coach - no matter how great - would have won with the lesser players we currently have. None.
@Bruin Gold You're in the minority with that though. I've seen a lot of analysts and media types who insist this team has the talent to win if we had a good coach.
Gentlemen - I come as a observer. Bruin Gold is absolutely correct. While the coaching is abysmal, you folks do not have the talent (especially at the skill positions) to compete as a Top 20 team. I am partial, but which starting Bruin on Saturday night, offense or defense, would start at USC? Frankly, I think none. Maybe Fauria, maybe? You do not have the horses in the offense line, your QB is sub standard, and your defense. Oh my! This too shall pass.
My fellow Bruins. In a matter of days Rick Neuheisel will be fired and we will be told things are going to get better. Don't be fooled. The problem is systemic. We have clean house in the Athletic Department and that starts with the Director himself.
Sign my petition to fire Dan Guerrero.
http://www.change.org/petitions/university-of-california-los-angeles-fire-dan-guerrero-fire-rick-neuheisel