OFFENSE
In announcing he would tighten up the running back rotation, does that imply Jim Mora and the coaches are happy with the offensive line’s performance? Given your perspective from watching practices and games, what do you think is the primary reason for the running game struggling as much as it has?
Mora and the coaches didn’t just imply that they’re happy with the offensive line’s performance, but Kennedy Polamalu said specifically that he was happy with it. He was asked specifically if the offensive line had to shoulder any of the blame after Stanford and Polamalu said no. Mora said Monday that everything was blocked the way they wanted it to be blocked. Polamalu said it’s up to him to teach the running backs better to see the holes and break through arm tackles. Mora said when he watched the film, he thought the team left 100 yards out on the field. When watching the game again Sunday night, I thought the offensive line actually did pretty well and I did notice a lot of the holes Mora would reference the next day. Solomon Thomas was a beast for Stanford and definitely got the better of Kolton Miller and Najee Toran, but I thought the offensive line had an overall decent day against a very good defensive line. I haven’t watched practice in more than a month since they closed everything after the first 20 minutes to the media, so I can’t speak to what’s going on at practice, but I think it falls on the running backs. Like the coaches said, there were holes to run through and tackles to be broken against Stanford.
It seems like this year, Josh Rosen is taking longer to release the ball on passing plays. Is this a part of the design of the new offense or is he having a harder time finding open receivers?
I assume you’re referring specifically about the time from snap to throw and not the actual time it takes Josh Rosen to release the ball from when he starts his throwing motion. I’m not sure if he is indeed taking longer to throw the ball this year (because I wasn’t here last year), but if it is, then I could see why. The offense is designed with a lot of progressions and he focuses on going through those. And yes, he has struggled at times to go through those. So it’s a combination of things.
What is happening with Mossi Johnson?
Mossi Johnson made a cameo against UNLV and caught that touchdown, then had two more catches against BYU. There’s a lot of mystery about who the lead running back and which guys will make the cut in what sounds like a shorter receiver rotation. I’m not completely sure if Johnson will make the cut because Mora said specifically he’s going to try to focus on getting guys on the field in the same situations they see in practice. It’s been a long time since we’ve watched practice fully, but I didn’t see a lot of Johnson during those times. The problem with the receiver group continues to be the same thing that plagued it during the offseason: they have a lot of guys, but they’re all more or less comparable overall. No one excels. They’re all serviceable. Johnson is serviceable, but without something extraordinary, it might be hard for him to work back in to the rotation with some of the guys who have already established some sort of an in-game rhythm with Rosen.
Whatever happened to all the pre-season talk of giving Rosen more autonomy to make pre-snap adjustments, or change plays, based on what he sees?
Perhaps it’s something to do with him still grasping the offense in a game situation. One thing at a time. First he has to get his normal progressions right, then he can start changing things up at the line.
Is there any indication that Mora and Polamalu now realize that they should let their five-star quarterback pass more, given the anemic running game? Mora says Rosen will be the No. 1 overall draft pick, so why run an offense as if your quarterback is a mere game manager? What do you think of their offensive approach?
I think they want to use the running game to set up the pass, so no, they will not abandon the run. Very, very few teams will abandon the run completely, even if the quarterback is a five-star recruit. Rosen actually throws it quite a bit, compared to some of his Pac-12 counterparts. He’s third in the conference in passing yards per game (291.2) after Cal’s Davis Webb and Washington State’s Luke Falk, who of course both play in extremely pass-oriented systems. Rosen has 151 passing attempts this year, most in the Pac-12 for quarterbacks who don’t play in offensive schemes named with the word “air.” I don’t think the team is trying to make Rosen into a “game-manager,” they’re trying to make him into a quarterback, which means someone who does what the team needs to win. Sometimes, like against BYU, that means passing 40 times for 307 yards. Other times it’s about allowing the running game to take the front seat. I have no problem with the offensive approach. I never thought it was going to be easy, which obviously it hasn’t, but that doesn’t mean it’s any worse than what the Bruins had. There are different ways to skin a cat and the Bruins are learning a new one.
What has happened with Stephen Johnson?
He got lost in the shuffle of the offensive change. Perhaps his speedy, shifty skill set doesn’t quite fit with Polamalu’s offense the way it meshed with Noel Mazzone’s.
Do you think the coaches will shake up the wide receiver rotation?
Like they spoke about this week, I think they’ll shorten it. There won’t be many more games when 14 or 12 guys catch passes like in UNLV or BYU. I think they’re focusing on developing quality over quantity when it comes to the receivers and finding a select few who could benefit from increased chances and an opportunity to gain some rhythm.
Why doesn’t Polamalu order Rosen to throw slant passes over the middle when he is getting blitzed? Does Mora have less confidence in Rosen’s ability to pass in a tight window?
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. I don’t know if Polamalu has instructed Rosen to do that, but if he has, that doesn’t necessarily mean Rosen will automatically do it when he has rushers bearing down on him. But Rosen is definitely does not excel under pressure and he needs to improve going forward.
I don’t think Mora has any less confidence in Rosen’s ability to do anything on the football field. He wouldn’t have wanted him to take the reins of this new offense if he didn’t think he could throw into a tight window, which he can. If anything, Rosen has looked the best this year when zipping passes to receivers instead of putting some air under them.
The coaches think the offense will start “clicking” and then they will be hard to stop. Do you agree with that assessment? What things are the offense able to do in practice that they aren’t able to do (or do consistently) in a game?
I don’t know how unstoppable it will be, but it will definitely get a lot better. To adapt a line from receivers coach Eric Yarber, youth is a disease and the only cure is experience. The offense is young and it just needs experience. It’s going on five games now so I would surely expect noticeable improvement soon, but I don’t think it’s going to end up being a poorly executed experiment that blows up in UCLA’s face. We haven’t watched a full practice in more than a month, so I can’t tell you what what’s working and what’s not working in practice.
What grade would you give Rosen so far?
2.7 on a 4.0 bell curve: Average, where a majority of the other students are, but much room for improvement.
DEFENSE
Why isn’t Marcus Rios starting over Nate Meadors? He can cover taller receivers.
Just because Nate Meadors gave up the game-winning touchdown doesn’t mean he’s not a good player. He actually had a very good game and Pro Football Focus gave him the fifth-highest grade for a UCLA defensive player (if you’re into those types of things). According to PFF, he gave up only two catches for 16 yards on five targets. That’s not bad at all. I think Meadors consistently gets the starting role because he hasn’t shown that he should let it go since he grabbed it late last year. He hasn’t been perfect, but he has been good overall. And if you’re talking about height to cover taller receivers, Marcus Rios is actually listed as one inch shorter than Meadors.
RECRUITING
Note: I try to distance myself from recruiting as much as possible during the season because there are other things to focus on with the team than the whims of 17/18-year-old kids still in high school. So I’m not the best person to ask about recruiting stuff right now.
Knowing you weren’t here – do you have any insights on Bruins’ 2015 receiver recruiting class? Any receiver help on the way from 2016 freshmen? How do you explain lack of a ‘Rosen Effect’?
*Answer to this question has been changed because I misunderstood the question originally*
I was not here for the 2015 class, so no, I don’t have any insight into what happened with it.The Bruins only brought in one receiver in that class (Cordell Broadus) and he is no longer with the team, obviously. Sometimes there are just misses in recruiting. In regard to the lack of the “Rosen Effect” for that class, perhaps it was just a matter of patience. It wasn’t instantaneous, but it was in play the next year when pulling in Theo Howard and Demetric Felton.
Do you think it’s a bad look for the program to not give playing time to a top recruit who enrolled early?
It’s possible that other schools can turn it into an anti-UCLA ploy to recruits, but in the world of recruiting, I feel like anything can be twisted into any direction by any coach. But if I was a coach looking for a player, I wouldn’t want an entitled one who expects everything handed to him just because someone put four or five stars next to his name. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening with Howard or any other freshman, but I would hope that the coaches are transparent and honest with the players about why they are/aren’t getting playing time.
Many UCLA fans claim Jim Mora does not totally invest himself in recruiting. Do you think he works as hard as the other Pac-12 coaches?
I haven’t been through a recruiting cycle with Mora and the team, so I don’t know yet. But getting a top-10 recruiting class nationally doesn’t come about without some hard work from the head coach and his entire staff.
OTHER
Is it true that UCLA and Notre Dame are only teams yet to play a lower division school? Do you know the rationale behind scheduling FCS schools? Could not playing lower divisional schools be an effective marketing tool for UCLA?
Not true: Several other teams did not schedule FCS schools this year, including Stanford and USC. ADDITION: If you’re speaking all time, then UCLA, USC and Notre Dame are the only FBS schools to have never played an FCS school.
Some possible reasons to schedule an FCS team:
- Getting a (near) sure-fire win can be a good thing when considering bowl eligibility for teams to just get to that six-win mark
- If you schedule three really tough, toss-up games in nonconference and lose all three, then it pretty much guarantees that you’re done. On the other hand, if you win them all, then you can be in the driver’s seat. It’s very high risk, very high reward and I suppose that some programs aren’t as comfortable with that.
- But the biggest reason is an unselfish reason: It’s good for the sport. It quite literally allows FCS programs to survive. The paycheck those lower-division schools get from playing just one of those games can finance the entire athletic department for a year. Those lower-division schools are important to the ecosystem of college football and by scheduling FCS schools, FBS programs are doing their part to maintain a certain amount of equilibrium in the sport. Former Georgia coach and current Miami coach Mark Richt spoke about this reason two years ago.
I guess a harder schedule overall could be seen as an effective marketing tool for UCLA, especially to recruits because it implies a better chance to play in the College Football Playoff. It’s also a plus for fans because they’ll be more excited to watch every game. The Big Ten made it a rule that its schools could not schedule FCS teams.
Is there any realistic scenario where Mique Juarez plays this season?
I wouldn’t rule anything out, but I would assume it’s a very, very long shot at this point. Assuming that he stayed in shape, studied the play book religiously and is able to earn his position back with his teammates, I’m not sure if it would be worth it to burn his redshirt halfway through the year.
There is a lot of debate over at Bruins Nation, citing analytics, that Mora should have gone for it on the two fourth downs and short yardage in the fourth quarter. Those situations were on the Stanford 18 when Mora kicked the field to go up 13-9, and the fourth-and-2 at the UCLA 46 with a little over two minutes left. As a math nerd, what do you think of those specific decisions and more broadly the issue of whether to go on fourth downs based on statistical evidence?
I’m actually not an analytics person when it comes to predicting the likeliness of an event to happen based on models and probability. I didn’t do that type of math and I really don’t put that much stock into it because to me, it’s just a system of educated guessing, albeit a very sophisticated one. I don’t like to guess. I like to know and in certain situations, I’m OK with not knowing while things settle themselves. (For that same reason, I also have an intense dislike for predicting games.) That’s my own personal rant about the probability-based analytics.
But to actually get to your question, I think hindsight is always 20-20. That’s the case with every Monday morning quarterback/Monday morning coach question everyone has ever asked in the history of football. If UCLA would have won, then no one would be care much about those decisions. I’m of the opinion that indecision is the real killer in close battles. Every coach has their own philosophy and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I could understand the thinking behind those decisions with the way the UCLA defense was playing. That’s a large gamble to place on a game that you were winning both on the scoreboard and on the field in several positions. It was a huge game, so perhaps you want your coach to take a big risk to get the big reward, but considering the potential momentum shift and the score, perhaps it could have cost the game right there instead of keeping the Bruins in at until the end. But again, I’m not into guessing what could have, might have happened if certain things changed.
And another piece to add on my dislike of statistical evidence based on probability, those numbers don’t apply to future individual trials. All other things being equal, if you flip a fair coin 10 times and it lands on heads, the probability of it landing on heads the 11th time is still 50 percent. So just because someone’s model predicted that going for it on fourth-and-2 from the other team’s 18 yard-line “worked” before doesn’t mean it’s going to help you on your specific trial. </rant>
After another game of subpar returns and yet another brush with disaster, is there another option for returns over Ishmael Adams?
There are other options. The first ones that come to my mind are Howard and Stephen Johnson. They both took reps returning kicks/punts during training camp and they obviously have blazing speed. Linebackers/special teams coach Scott White said he values ball security first and foremost in those situations, so the guys who show they’re reliable and good with the football will earn those spots.
Does Mora deserve an extension based on his must-win losses?
A hypothetical new extension or the one he already got? I think the one he got earlier this year wasn’t so much for performance, but to show that the program is on solid footing with a coach who is not going to bolt. That sounds like a terrible thing to give an extension for, but it really does help for recruiting, even if the team is coming off an 8-5 mark.
If you wanted to ponder the situation of if he didn’t get that extension during the summer and he was searching for a new contract at the end of year, it would have to a looming question, but depending on how this season finishes, not something that would kill the chance of a hypothetical extension. Don’t let one poor game cloud your judgement to a larger picture and don’t start framing the picture before it’s done.
Just finished listening to a USC recruiting podcast where Gerard Martinez stated that, like SC, where there are coaching issues that could affect this year’s class, UCLA has similar issues. He said it is going around that Jim Mora is checked out and could leave after the season. What is your take on what Gerard said in regards to Mora?
That would be a pretty low move to sign a contract extension and leave the next year, especially when said contract extension was to essentially demonstrate stability. Coaching is a fickle business, especially in college athletics, and if he did leave, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve see a coach suddenly bolt after signing an extension, but I don’t see it happening this year.
Do you think Jim Mora can win a big game?
I know moral victories don’t count for anything in the official record books, but I really do think Stanford won that game more than UCLA lost it. I do believe the defense played a hell of a game, minus that last drive, and the team had every opportunity to win that game. Getting the opportunity to do it is an extremely important thing.
Now on to the idea of grabbing the opportunity and making something of it: As Newton’s first law of physics states, an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. The Bruins need to find that force. (To be clear, I am not saying UCLA needs a coaching change. I’m going to say that again: I am not saying UCLA needs a coaching change.) But the Bruins need some sort of lightning bolt to spark the program and that can be a number of things: a big recruit (perhaps it could still be Rosen), a little misfortune for another team, or maybe some good old-fashioned luck. Oregon’s lightning bolt moment, for example, was “The Pick” against Washington in 1994. That one moment is known as the one that changed Oregon football and allowed it to grow into the well-known, florescent uniform-wearing program it is today. It probably won’t be as easy to mark the moment for the Bruins when/if it comes, but that doesn’t mean it won’t/can’t.
How effective/successful has the new mental conditioning coach, Trevor Moawad, been/is going to be?
I think his impact has shown already because the team has gone through two really difficult losses and the players and coaches still seem to be on board with everything. They quickly spoke about staying together, staying positive and resetting to move forward together. That’s an important quality to have and that’s something Moawad has preached.