Let me start by stating three things:
1. I am a true blue-blooded Bruin. I count J.J. Stokes among my
favorite UCLA athletes. I was frustrated by Brian
Poli-Dixon’s inability to be J.J. Stokes. I thanked
FredEX’s hands, too (while he was at UCLA, at least).
2. I have never, as long as I’ve been at the Bruin,
written anything negative about UCLA sports.
3. I actually like Karl Dorrell. I think he’s a good man,
and so are his players. The football team plays the right way: with
effort, class and dignity. I know that what happened last Saturday
in the Miami-FIU game would never happen here. I think the program
is in much better shape now than how Bob Toledo left it.
That being said, I’m about to break No. 2 and talk about
one of the biggest gripes I’ve have with coach Dorrell: the
offense.
Like I said, I really do like Dorrell. He’s an upstanding
gentleman who is a role model for his players and the UCLA
community at large.
The problem I have is with his offensive philosophy. The West
Coast offense is predicated on short-precision passing. The idea is
to dink and dunk your way down the field in five to seven-yard
chunks all the way to the end zone.
This makes execution paramount. If you can’t execute, you
won’t score, which is true of any offense, but it is of
extreme importance in this offense because of the lack of big
vertical passes.
This style of offense has proven successful at the NFL level,
and I actually like it, but at the college level it just
doesn’t seem to fit. In the NFL, there is relative roster
continuity. And those players can study the complex system full
time, yet it is often said it takes three years in the system to
fully grasp it. Even Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons, who is
running the West Coast for the third year this season, is reported
to not fully understand it.
If it takes college players three years to fully grasp the
offense, they’re already juniors or redshirt sophomores. That
means it requires an offense of upperclassmen to execute correctly
and score points. This year, the Bruins don’t have that.
Last year it worked because the offense was filled with veteran
playmakers, such as Maurice Drew, Marcedes Lewis and Drew Olson.
But really, any offense with those players (two of them true bona
fide NFL-level talents) would have been explosive. This
year’s team seems to lack playmakers and a real go-to talent.
Last year, in the red zone, it was simple: throw it to Lewis.
Everywhere else on the field, get it to Drew and stand back.
They made execution less important because they could break off
huge plays themselves. Some of that falls on the players. The
coaches aren’t the ones playing, but they do have the
responsibility of putting players in the best places to
succeed.
I personally would like to see freshman wide receiver Terrence
Austin get more time. No offense to Andrew Baumgartner and Matt
Willis, but are they really both more talented than Austin? Even if
he doesn’t fully grasp the offense yet, isn’t it
possible to create a package of 5-10 plays for him to showcase his
open-field talents?
The coaching staff got freshman Jeremy McGee into the game plan
last week for a reverse, so why not create a package for Austin?
Throw one of those bubble screens out to him and see if he can make
somebody miss.
Since this team lacks the veterans to execute the offense to
perfection, I would hope the coaching staff would dream up ways to
get the ball to their playmakers in more creative ways.
Where is the misdirection? And would a trick play or two every
few games really hurt? It doesn’t seem like deception is in
the playbook. Maybe it’s all being saved for USC. I
don’t know.
What I do know is that this offense will continue to struggle
for the rest of the year. It has the ability to be much better next
year as the team matures, but what about this year? And what about
in two years when the current junior class that makes up the core
of the team graduates?
We probably have to start all over again talking about execution
and waiting for the players to mature. It does this program no good
if the team struggles because of the offensive philosophy every few
years. Something will have to change for this to become a
consistently dominant offense.
Oh and for the record, Jonathan Lee has a 26-inch vertical
leap.
E-mail Lee at [email protected].