Weekly Q&A – Bye week answers

via GIPHY

Is UCLA’s running game so far beyond repair that their best option is to completely abandon it? How did the coaches not see such a glaring deficiency in spring/fall camp? Do you think it’s likely that Polamalu and Klemm are gone next season?

I don’t think they’ll completely abandon the run game for the rest of the season. They might still be terrible at running the ball, but that won’t stop them from trying. I think they went away from it against Utah because 1) they found some success passing and 2) Utah’s front is difficult to run on anyway. The timing was such that it wasn’t going to be easy for the Bruins to run last week even if they were good at it because the Utes have a good run defense.

During training camp, the run game actually did have success against the defense, so at that time, there wasn’t too much to be concerned about. Now the roles have switched a little bit. It’s definitely odd that it worked out like that. I don’t think anyone saw it coming because you honestly can’t expect a team from any Power 5 conference to be THIS bad at running the ball, especially when they want to run the ball. UCLA is literally the worst team in the country at running the ball (85.5 yards per game). A slight consolation is possibly that Texas State is still the most inefficient team, averaging 2.52 yards per carry, while UCLA is second-to-last with 2.81. You can’t predict that kind of ineptitude, especially during the offseason when hope springs eternal and people are seeing Pac-12 championship trophies in their sleep. As illogical as it sounds, I don’t think the mindset of training camp is to think of and plan for possible problems. It’s to (cliché alert) get better, and that mindset of constantly striving for better requires rose-colored glasses at times. And when you need to take those glasses off, it can be startling.

This staff has been mostly in tact since Jim Mora’s first year. Perhaps it’s getting a little stale. I think there will be some shuffling during the offseason, but can’t comment specifically on those two coaches at this time.

Any real talk of Mora leaving for the NFL after this season?

There’s always a risk, but from what I last heard, the team morale was strong, suggesting that he would want to stick around to help turn things around.

Does Adrian Klemm have any chance of pulling in recruits that will protect Rosen and open holes for the running backs?

I don’t know what makes a good recruiter and what doesn’t, but apparently Klemm has whatever it is that makes someone good. Kids are often distracted by shiny things and Klemm does have three very shiny Super Bowl rings. From what I understand of his role, he also does recruiting for other positions besides offensive line, even though that is his main focus, so that makes him valuable for other areas as well. However, when asked last week specifically about recruiting offensive linemen for this new system, Klemm said “recruiting will take care of itself after (this season).” That doesn’t suggest that recruiting is at the forefront of his mind right now. This is a total non-answer answer, because I honestly don’t know how to answer your question. Does he have a chance? Sure, anything is possible.

Do you think Josh Rosen is another five-star bust like Ben Olson?

I think he’ll be fine in the end. This year has been unfortunate for him, especially because he got hurt right as he was starting to come into his own. And it’s not like he got all that much help from his teammates when he was healthy. There is/was astronomical hype around Rosen — and some of that is by his own doing — but when there is that much hype, it’s hard for anyone to live up to it. So judge him however you want, but I think it’s too early to bury him.

What did you think of Mora’s handling in the postgame press conference of the question about possibly losing the locker room? It seemed like the reporter asked in a respectful manner and was treated poorly by Mora.

I don’t think Mora handled it well. He’s an emotional coach and it came out in an unfortunate way at that moment. I think he felt like the reporter was trying to attack him by insinuating that HE might be the one who could “lose the locker room.” I don’t think it was the reporter’s intent. I think it was a fair question, but one that possibly could have been phrased better. Perhaps instead of saying if he might “lose the locker room,” it might have been better to ask Mora how he planned to keep the locker room together or something of that nature because it keeps the question open-ended and it doesn’t have the same negative tone that Mora can then spin out of control. But when words are coming out of your mouth and there’s no script, things don’t always come out as polished as you’d like. I think that was the case for both the reporter and Mora last Saturday.

Why should we expect next year’s offensive line to be better?

I am in no position to tell you how to feel about the future. Conor McDermott’s going to be gone, which is a big loss. Paco Perez should be healthy by next year and he should be a welcome addition. Alex Akingbulu, who is redshirting this year to put on weight, apparently has a very high ceiling, but is still a little raw, from what I’ve been told. So he might not be ready to handle a full workload next year, but down the line, maybe there are good things to come from him. But perhaps the best reason to be hopeful for offensive line improvement is that this year was so poor that there are very few other places to go besides up.

What is the outlook like for next season? Was this season just an anomaly?

I would expect improvement from the offense next year and young mistakes from the defense. The defense is losing a lot of key pieces on all levels. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being a reverse of what they have this year and end up with a good(ish) offense and bad defense. But honestly, it’s personally too early for my brain to start thinking about next year.

With the season obviously not going as expected, and most of the receivers dropping passes, should it not make sense to give Theo Howard more playing time and therefore more experience?

With all the drops over the first few weeks, it made sense to play Howard a long time ago, in my opinion. I get why the coaches want him to earn his stripes and learn how to block better (because as you see below, he really whiffed on some earlier this season), but at the same time, they really could have used some sure-handed help.

That being said, Mora said the team only had three drops with 71 passes thrown last week against Utah, so that’s progress. (Maybe?)

What are your thoughts on Rosen nerve problem? Do you see him coming back soon? Is it something that can happen again if he lands on his shoulder?

My thoughts are that I’m not a doctor and I know very little about the nervous system. Prior to us learning about the nerve issue, I thought he had a chance to play last Saturday and I obviously missed on that one. The bye week should be helpful for him, but I honestly don’t know, and I’m not sure how many people even within the team really know because it does sound like a very tricky issue.

Is Jim Mora on the hot seat?

I don’t think Mora is going to be fired because his buyout is too great. He just signed a two-year extension this summer, and according to this interesting piece USA TODAY, his buyout for this year is upwards of $15 million. It’s extremely expensive to fire a coach. Whether that’s “fair” or not is another issue, but that’s the world of college football we’re living in right now.

Why has game time UCLA “Chat” gone Twitter only?

There are a lot of thing to juggle on game days and finding the right balance between Twitter and chatting is one of them that I haven’t mastered yet. If people want more chatting and less tweeting, I can try my best to make that happen, if that’s the preference. (Toward the end of games, I have to limit tweeting — or chatting — because of deadlines, so be warned.) I’m down to chat it up with you all on the live chat, but if we’re going to, know that we’ve also had some issues with people posting inappropriate comments on the live chat. So, like I said last week, don’t be that person.

Can you update frosh who’ve burned their redshirts?

There was some confusion previously about this issue, but hopefully I can clear it up.

Here is a list of freshmen who have already played and therefore, have burnt their redshirts for this year (unless they suffered a season-ending injury within the first three games, which I don’t think any did):

  • LB Krys Barnes, DB Brandon Burton, LS Johnny Den Bleyker, WR Ethan Fernea, WR Theo Howard, P Austin Kent, K JJ Molson, RB Jalen Starks, RB Brandon Stephens, DL Boss Tagaloa, LB Lokeni Toailoa.

You’ll probably notice that this list is shorter than one I’ve previously posted in a Q&A when someone asked me this same question. The reason is possible inaccuracies in participation reports handed out at the ends of games, which were used to compile the first list. The inaccuracies come from data entry error due to duplicate numbers. This is one of my many reporting nightmares, to have mistakes in “official” box scores. But I hope this clears up some confusion.

Freshmen who haven’t played: QB Dymond Lee, QB Matt Lynch, QB Devon Modster, DB/LB Leni Toailoa, WR Damian Alloway, DB Keyon Riley, LB Mique Juarez, OL Michael Alves, WR Audie Omotosho, TE Jordan Wilson, DL Osa Odighizuwa, DL Jake Burton

Freshmen who have been confirmed as redshirts by the coaching staff due to injury: WR Demetric Felton (shoulder injury), OL Alex Akingbulu (gaining weight), DL Marcus Moore (back)

  • I’m going to unofficially add OL Paco Perez to this group because he recently moved back to the sideline due to his knee injury, which is a step backwards in his rehab.