Summer Session C is three weeks old and fall quarter is a month away, but one class is just beginning.
Spaulding Field won’t show up on the registrar’s website and Rick Neuheisel isn’t rated as a professor on BruinWalk.com. There are only two spots open, and they belong to Kevin Prince and Richard Brehaut.
The midterm rolled around Saturday at Drake Stadium in front of 6,650 fans at the UCLA football team’s fall scrimmage.
The Bruins are through with two weeks of fall camp and have less than two weeks until the season opener at Houston. The problem with Neuheisel’s grading system is that only one quarterback will pass or be named the starter.
Saturday, he had to take a critical look at his methods.
“They get A’s in the classroom, and then they come out here and it somehow doesn’t translate to the testing area,” he said of his quarterbacks.
Neuheisel’s deadline for turning in a name is Sept. 3, when the Bruins take the field. Will he tip his hand early? He doesn’t even seem to know.
During last week’s practices, Neuheisel was asked time and again when he would make the call. He continued to say he would wait until the “prudent” time to decide. He got the question again Saturday.
“I’m going to know when I know, and I’ll let you all know,” he told media members after the scrimmage.
Their respective numbers weren’t too far off Saturday. Prince, a redshirt junior, was 4-for-11 for 81 yards, while Brehaut, a junior who missed part of last week’s practice with a sprained foot, was 7-for-12 for 75 yards. Brehaut shined at the beginning of the scrimmage, while Prince came on late.
Each quarterback was given four drives, some with the first team, some with the second. Prince, however, continues to get the first looks with the first team in practices and the scrimmage.
Brehaut led the offense to scores on three of his drives, while Prince only scored on one of his, a 5-yard touchdown run preceded by a 46-yard bomb he threw to redshirt senior Josh Smith.
Hearing both of them talk after the scrimmage, you would think the job was Brehaut’s to lose even though the popular wisdom says otherwise.
“I can’t be making little mistakes like I made today,” said Prince, who missed an opportunity to check down on a running play where senior running back Derrick Coleman was blown up in the backfield. “Those little things turn into big things.”
“I thought that I did a great job stepping in that huddle and making those guys follow me, leading them down and putting points on the board,” Brehaut added. “I felt comfortable out there tonight.”
The team will practice throughout this week, culminating in a closed scrimmage on Friday at the Rose Bowl.
Keeping up with the Jones
Redshirt junior defensive end Datone Jones was too good for Saturday’s scrimmage.
Jones, like a lot of the proven players on the team, was removed from the game early on to prevent injury.
Jones missed all of last season when he broke his right foot on the second day of last season’s fall camp. Jones ended the offense’s first drive when he batted down Prince’s pass on third down.
“I just told the defense to come out and have fun and play fast, because we’re going to be off in three plays every time we’re on the field,” Jones said.
Coleman breaks free
Johnathan Franklin, the team’s proven redshirt junior running back, only played in the first series, opening the door for other running backs to get involved. Each of them answered the bell, but Coleman was the most impressive. He carried the ball five straight times on one drive, one of them going for 22 yards.
Injury-free
UCLA escaped Saturday’s scrimmage without any major injuries, a change of pace for the team. Redshirt senior center Kai Maiava was knocked out for the season when he broke his ankle in last season’s fall scrimmage.
Redshirt junior cornerback Aaron Hester left the game with a tweaked hamstring, the severity of which is unknown.
“We’ll be optimistic and think that Aaron can be back,” Neuheisel said. “In the event that he can’t, it’s going to require some head scratching.”