Some Tradition

by Paragon SC on Apr 16, 2008 5:15 AM PDT in USC Football Comment 9 comments

Some Tradition

I was listening to EDSBS Live last night and they had ESPN's Bruce Feldman on to talk about some of the developments from spring practices from around the country. Orson mentioned that the bruins decided to continue their years old tradition of "going over the wall" and blowing off a day of practice. I checked out Brian Dohn's blog and he had a blurb on it as well.

Practice done

UCLA's football practice is over, long before it was supposed as the players decided to use a long-time tradition and blow off practice after stretching by going over the wall. That said, the players ran through an open gate rather than climb over the wall at Spaulding Field.

UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel knows of the tradition, but basically said it was an odd time for it considering UCLA is installing a new offense and the offensive line needs loads of work.

Ya Think!!

I guess their "Passion Buckets" are having a hard time getting full over there.

And Slick Rick tries to spin it.

"Our guys showed good solidarity,'' Neuheisel said. "It's not what I would have liked to happen (Tuesday), but I remember being a part of teams that did it and still had successful seasons. So, hopefully, we can benefit in some way from this.''

Right...

Wish in one hand, s--t in the other and tell me which one fills up first. Spin it any way you want Rick, the fact is this is not going to be a very good team this year. Cowan has pretty much been named starter (and he will be running for his life all season), the offensive line is about as porous as the Iraqi army in the first gulf war and they just lost their best lineman who effectively retired due to numerous knee injuries and they are trying to install a new offense.

I guess they aren't taking it too seriously. Feldman said he would have more today on his blog about ucla and he hinted as to just how bad things may be in Westwood this fall. It's obvious that the coaching staff is now seeing just how bare the cupboard is and that they really don't have much to work with.

These knuckleheads have little room for error and they want to piss a valuable opportunity away? Way to go Sherlock.

It's going to a long season over there. I guess we'll see if they can keep their Passion Buckets full over there. For now it looks like they can't even get them filled let alone keep them filled.

I'm not sure this was the type of energy that Slick Rick hoped that he would bring to the program.

Go Figure...

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Ummm ...

Just curious about what you really think?

Go Bears!

by SoCal Oski on Apr 16, 2008 9:13 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

That Obvious, Huh...

This Thread sums it up pretty good.

But I particularly loved this comment in that thread:

What have those seniors accomplished, other than a "blind squirrel finding a nut" upset of USC in 2006?

Leaders? Most of those clowns couldn't lead a whore into bed.

We have our fun at SC but at least we are winning something, these guys have a way to go before they even get to the respectable level. It's going to be a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG practice today or tomorrow.

by Paragon SC on Apr 16, 2008 9:58 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

the sleeping giant takes a nap

Brian Dohn tidied up Logan Paulsen's quote a bit. He actually said, "It's been a long spring practice and Logan needed a breaky-break, okay? We all skipped spring break and now it's time for a one-day-vacay!"

by DC Trojan on Apr 16, 2008 9:44 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Now be nice. Our guys just wanted

a small taste of Joe McKnight's training regimen this spring:-)

Leaving aside the snarktastic commentary, I do believe we will have problems this season, but none relate to the missed day of practice. We had a less-than-stellar performance from the OL last season and we lost several contributors, not to mention the mass exodus of what, some 15-20 senior starters? And it's not like KD was reloading the recruiting classes a la the Humanitarian.

We will have some very good freshmen, but we are woefully thin on the OL, our QB situation can be simply summarized as "not promising" given the OL concerns, and the loss of so many starters will likely make this a tough year, as you predict. This is a rebuilding year for UCLA, but I see no reason why we can't go 6-6 like USC did under Carroll in his first season and possibly better, since the coaching is significantly better than what we have had the past several years.

by ucladj89 on Apr 16, 2008 10:02 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Good one...

no disagreement with that. but I think its a bigger deal because of a new offense being installed. Its not the tradition its when it was implemented. It's like these guys aren't taking it seriously. More like a slap in the face of Neuheisel. He wants to have fun with best of them but he understands what he is undertaking, I'm just not sure the players get it...just my 30,000 foot view.

I can just hear it now...this is a part of the lingering effect of the Dorrell era.

6-6 is within reach but it will take some effort to get there.

by Paragon SC on Apr 16, 2008 10:15 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

kinda strange

this is a tradition I have never heard of and I have followed UCLA football pretty closely since '84. Learn something new every day, I suppose. I read an account in the paper that the tradition was in place even when Neuheisel was coach, but it was eliminated by Toledo then reinstated by Dorrell.

So yeah, I guess you could say this is a lingering effect of the Dorrell era.:-)

6-6 will be a good year IMHO, although I haven't really sat down to take a look at the schedule and considered how strong/weak the opponents are going to be.

by ucladj89 on Apr 16, 2008 8:25 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

"The passion buckets are flowing"

Newsflash to some of the academic wunderkinds in Westwood posting same - buckets can be overflowing, but they can't be flowing... since nothing flows inside a bucket.

As for the swipes they're taking at Joe McKnight, our football team's graduation success rate AND academic progress rate are higher than theirs, according to the NCAA. People in powder blue bubbles...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/07/SPA9SL2DK.DTL

by Defender90 on Apr 16, 2008 7:25 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think you got it wrong

Joe was blowing off class to play football. You guys were blowing off football to go to class.

by frak on Apr 17, 2008 1:43 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Maybe the fUcla players ditched because. . . .

. . .they REALLY wanted to see, firsthand, ALL THOSE PEOPLE WHO APPARENTLY PARADE DOWN WESTWOOD IN "USC" SWEATSHIRTS? Yeah, you've heard it before I'm sure. That baby-bruin-complaint of being tired of seeing us Trojans "squatting" in Wastewood.

Fact of the matter is, wtf are people WANTING to do in Wastewood in the first place? All there are is guys looking at guys over there.

Ohhhhhhh! There's the rub! (knock yourself out brothas, yeah. whatever blows your skirt up? i guess)

FIGHT ON!

by tapoutstylist on Apr 17, 2008 8:57 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs