Midway through practice on Wednesday, quarterback Kevin Prince dropped back and fired a tight spiraling ball to tight end Ryan Moya for a touchdown.
Coach Rick Neuheisel pumped his fist and yelled for all of Spaulding Field to hear, “You’re firing me up.”
About an hour later at the conclusion of practice, a Kai Forbath field goal attempt was blocked, and cornerback Alterraun Verner returned it for a touchdown, with his coach running with him stride for stride.
On a day when the UCLA football team uncharacteristically practiced in shorts, Neuheisel wanted to make sure that his Bruins had the intensity of a full-pad practice.
With those two plays, Neuheisel got exactly what he wanted.
“It’s a risk when you take the pants off while making sure you’re going to get the kind of tempo that you want,” Neuheisel said. “But I thought our guys came out with great maturity and great effort.”
On Saturday, the Bruins (3-5, 0-5 Pac-10) welcome the Washington Huskies (3-5, 2-3) to the Rose Bowl in the first game of November. After having an October to forget ““ five straight conference losses ““ the Bruins are looking for a strong finish and still hope to achieve their season-long goal: to qualify for a bowl game.
“This is a new month for us,” sophomore wide receiver Taylor Embree said. “Coach always says that the games they remember are played in November. We know that in order for us to get to what we want to get to, we need to win out, so we practice that way today.”
The Bruins are coming off a tough loss at Oregon State, where UCLA came back from 16 down in the fourth, to tie, only to lose in the final minute. Prince believes that if the Bruins had been able to do the “little things,” such as starting off more consistently on offense, the Bruins would have left Corvallis with their first Pac-10 win.
For Prince, the Bruins need an aggressive mentality on Saturday, but not too aggressive that they get ahead of themselves.
“We still got four games left in the season, and we don’t want to blow it right now,” Prince said. “We know we got to win but at the same time we don’t want to go out there and try to do too much and fall behind as a result.”
QUICK HITS: Freshman wide receivers Morrell Presley (sprained shoulder) and Randall Carroll (tweaked groin) left practice early … Junior offensive lineman Eddie Williams will require surgery on his foot and likely will miss the rest of the season … Freshman cornerback Aaron Hester is scheduled for an X-ray to make sure that there is no further damage to the cracked fibula … Senior defensive tackle Jerzy Siewierski (plantar fasciitis) is doubtful for this week.