The annual UCLA spring football game is more than just a scrimmage.
It’s a chance for UCLA fans to see next year’s team months before it’s prepared, but they still expect perfection from the team.
It’s an autograph session, when fans can come onto the field after the scrimmage and meet the players.
It’s a chance for the Bruin faithful to hear UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel’s first motivational speech in which Neuheisel, whom I love and support, commented, “There can only be one first-time Pac-12 champion, and it might as well be the Bruins.”
Way to not set the bar too high, Slick Rick.
But a fresh new focus was found at this year’s “Spring Classic,” as I like to call it, in the form of a fresh new face.
That face belongs to rising freshman quarterback Brett Hundley.
Rising junior quarterback Richard Brehaut managed the first series of plays Saturday, as everyone expected.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
When it came time for the second series, it was rising redshirt junior Nick Crissman that stood behind center rather than Hundley, causing me to ask myself, “Where’s B-Hund?”
We’ll stick with that nickname the rest of the way.
When it was finally time for B-Hund to take the field, which came during the Bruins’ third offensive series, it was as if the crowd had finally got what it had been waiting for.
B-Hund received the loudest ovation upon taking the field, even louder than the ovation that the entire team received at the beginning and end of the scrimmage, unless I’m hard of hearing.
The pressure-button word surrounding B-Hund this spring has been “accuracy.” So when the freshman QB came in and connected on his first few passes, much to the delight of the crowd, I jumped the gun and threw that issue out of the window.
The kid can be accurate. I know it just by seeing less than five plays.
In B-Hund’s next series, the freshman QB began to go for it. He attempted two long passes that would have resulted in touchdowns, but overthrew the receiver on both of them.
However, his inaccuracy wasn’t the focal point. It was arm strength that drew gasps from the crowd.
The kid has a cannon.
Can’t you tell I want this B-Hund thing to work so badly?
Later in the scrimmage, he took the field again and led the Bruins to their second touchdown of the scrimmage, a drive that may have been mired by some overruling of the referees by Neuheisel.
It’s Slick Rick’s world, and we’re just living in it.
But I say all of that to say this: Simply put, Hundley has “it.”
“It” is something that UCLA has not seen from the quarterback position in a number of years, but finally, “it” has arrived.
Hundley has the ability to still “wow” during his missteps. I, along with the crowd in attendance, want Hundley to be great, which is why I see him getting the benefit of the doubt that UCLA quarterbacks aren’t usually afforded.
“It’s just natural instincts,” Hundley said Saturday about adapting to the college game. “Once I got out there today, I knew what I was doing, and it felt natural. I was moving where I wanted to. I mean, I made mistakes, and I’m not really downing myself on that ““ I’ll watch film tomorrow and get it ““ but to me it’s all instincts. Once my natural instincts take over and I know what I’m doing, then everything is the same speed.”
Think about what Hundley said, and realize that he understands football for what it is.
It’s not all about playbooks and going in accordance to plan. It sounds to me that Hundley believes football is about making plays and knowing how to do what you need to do when you need to do it.
It’s been my opinion that UCLA quarterbacks have been too “by the book” in recent years. When Kevin Prince ““ who will challenge for the starting QB spot as a rising redshirt junior this season ““ stepped outside of “going by the book” and decided he wanted to make plays, we saw flashes of brilliance.
Prince never lacked the skill to be a great quarterback, he is just injury-prone.
B-Hund, however, is bigger and faster than Prince and will undoubtedly add another dimension to the Bruins’ offense ““ whenever he gets his crack at the starting job ““ as a quarterback who can not only make plays with his feet, but can also make big plays with his feet.
“I got to make the most of every rep I get, and that’s what I try to do every time I get a rep,” Hundley said of competing for the starting job once Prince comes back off of injury. “Once he gets here, I may get less reps, I may get the same amount of reps ““ I don’t know. The reps I do get I’ve just got to make the most of them.”
I can tell you, there are already a number of fans pushing for B-Hund to start this season.
Their logic? What do the Bruins have to lose?
Listen, if we started the season today, with every quarterback at full strength, I would go with Prince. But “full strength” and “Prince” are polar opposites.
In second place for me is Hundley.
Hundley, as a freshman, is already a polarizing figure. He’s big, he can run, and he intrigues anyone concerned with UCLA football. Sportswriters itch to critique him, and fans itched to meet him.
After Saturday’s scrimmage, Hundley was by far the most bombarded of the UCLA players. Around 100 to 150 fans created a barricade around Hundley at the game’s conclusion, while he calmly signed each autograph and posed for each photograph.
Based on presence and expectations alone, Hundley has separated himself from any quarterback on this year’s team and in recent years.
If Hundley were to start this year, he would certainly receive his lumps, and a healthy Prince would be better for a UCLA team looking for a bowl appearance.
But for a program that needs more than a six-win bowl berth, more than a middle-of-the-pack Pac-12 finish, for a team and coach that needs a superstar, a guy who will be attending prom this upcoming week may be the key to a new era of UCLA football.
With reports from Ryan Menezes, Bruin Sports senior staff.