Greg Schain Schain’s roommate thinks
Madonna wrote the song "American Pie." E-mail him at [email protected].
There’s an old adage in sports that says,
“It’s not how you start, it’s how you
finish.”
This wise proverb haunts the UCLA football team year after
year.
It seems like every year, the same storyline is written. The
Bruins start out hot, upsetting teams that are ranked Top 10 in the
nation.
The wins earn them a Top-10 spot in the AP poll. People around
Westwood get excited for a possible run at a national
championship.
Then the team, overconfident and overrated, collapses faster
than the Taliban.
It’s like a broken record by now ““ a broken record
that I’m sick of hearing. The team needs to address some
fundamental flaws in the offseason in order to right this ship. The
following obvious changes need to be made:
1. UCLA needs a new starting quarterback. Cory Paus has proven
that he can’t run an effective offense without the presence
of running back DeShaun Foster lined up behind him.
Foster isn’t gonna be here next year, and the team will be
in trouble if it doesn’t have a quarterback who can step up
and lead the offense.
Paus has looked absolutely awful in UCLA’s last four
losses. The numbers: zero TDs, eight interceptions. All have been
in big games when UCLA has needed a win. A true winner comes
through in clutch situations, and Paus hasn’t.
It’s a good start that he’s benched for the rest of
the season. He needs to stay there next season also.
What other options do the Bruin faithful have?
Not many, I’m afraid. Backup Scott McEwan, who will start
this weekend against ASU, is graduating. This year’s
third-string option, Ryan McCann, will be a senior and can start
next season. He led UCLA to a comeback wins over then-No. 3 Alabama
and then-No. 3 Michigan early in the 2000 season, but was
ineffective in his other two starts.
It would still be wiser though, to give McCann a shot than to
let Paus start another year.
Clearly the best option is to give the ball to one of the two
freshman recruits who are projected to come in ““ Matt Moore
or Drew Olson. Reports say that the two are pretty similar in terms
of talent, so it would be up to the coaching staff which one to
pick.
McCann might have growing pains next season, but short-term
suffering could pay dividends in the long run.
Whatever they do, one thing is clear: UCLA fans shouldn’t
have to suffer another season with Paus at the helm. His play is
subpar, and his drunken-driving charges reflect badly on the
program and the school. It’s time for both him, and UCLA, to
move on past this unfortunate phase of the team’s
history.
2. Head coach Bob Toledo should also be held accountable for
putting the program in a terrible situation this year. The 2001
team was the one designed to go for it all; the big guns on defense
““ Marques Anderson, Ryan Nece and Robert Thomas ““ are
all seniors. The team’s defense will sorely miss these guys
and won’t be the force next year that they were this
season.
This football team fell apart after the loss to Oregon. They
looked embarrassingly unprepared for USC, and were consequently
shut out. It seemed as if UCLA didn’t even have a game plan
going into the big cross-town showdown.
Preparedness starts with the head coach. Coaching matters more
in football than in any other sport, and there is no excuse for the
constant late-season collapses by the Bruins.
He should have benched Paus weeks ago. Doing it now is too
little, too late.
Whoever the new athletic director is next year should look
around for a new head coach to replace Toledo ““ someone who
focuses on improving rather than collapsing during the season.
3. UCLA needs to recruit players who specialize in beating
Pac-10 teams. The Pac-10 offensive style of play is more of a West
Coast offense, where teams run a lot of screens, crossing routes
and post patterns.
The best type of defense to have against that kind of offense is
one built with speed, not size.
The size of the players on UCLA’s defense is one reason
that the Bruins are consistently able to beat teams like Alabama,
Michigan and other big schools from the East and Midwest. These
types of offenses are built more around the running game, where
size of the defensive line matters a lot more.
UCLA needs to bring in faster defensive players to help keep up
with the high-powered offenses featured in the Pac-10, and maybe
they’ll finally be able to beat teams like Stanford, Oregon
and USC.
Making these changes might turn an embarrassing Bruin team into
legitimate contenders.
It’s been almost fifty years since UCLA won its sole
national football title. Bruin fans are hungry for another one.
But have patience. Fundamental changes like the ones I’ve
discussed above need to happen. This team needs to be turned upside
down.
And then maybe that old football adage will work in UCLA’s
favor, instead of annually haunting them.