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ON THE OFFENSE:

Does Josh Rosen need a Heisman type year for UCLA to make the College Football Playoff (2016 or 2017)? How do you think Rosen would answer the first question?

I think the College Football Playoff is for UCLA this year, no matter what types of numbers Josh Rosen puts up. With the parity in the Pac-12 and some bad nonconference losses (looking at you, Washington State), it’s going to be hard for any Pac-12 team to get into the Playoff, especially UCLA with its loss to Texas A&M. For next year, that’s a tough one to answer. I can barely think past this week, let alone to next year. Rosen will definitely be expected to put up big numbers next year as it will be his second year in his tailor-made offense that will have a few more returners. The defense takes a big hit next year because they’ll lose several seniors including Takkarist McKinley, Eli Ankou, Jayon Brown and Fabian Moreau. If he has a good year this year, Eddie Vanderdoes could be gone too. So maybe next year, the roles will be reversed and it’ll be up to an experienced offense to carry the defense. But really, that’s a tough question to answer right now for next year.

As for how Rosen would answer that question, that’s another interesting question. He might say something like he expects the best from himself every game and if he executes the way he can, then the team can accomplish whatever it wants (but he won’t specifically say it wants). He could also say that it’s a quarterback-driven sport, point out that rarely does a team make it to the Playoff without a star on offense, and he’s expecting himself to be that star for the Bruins, but won’t answer directly yes or no. He obviously has extremely high expectations for himself and if you asked him, he would want to be putting up Heisman-type numbers just because he believes he personally can, not because he believes he needs to for his team to succeed. But he’ll keep the team’s interests first, always.  Continue reading “Weekly Q&A – Stanford answers” »