UCLA chosen as favorite to win Pac-12 South title at football media day

On Nov. 17 of last year, UCLA linebacker Anthony Barr rushed past USC’s offensive line untouched. The blown assignment allowed the then-junior a free shot at USC quarterback Matt Barkley, a play that effectively ended the Trojans’ bid for a Pac-12 South title and acted as the symbolic transition of power in Los Angeles collegiate football.

During Friday’s Pac-12 media day, the play had been shrunk down to purely Xs and Os, mixed in with a little comic disbelief.

“I wanted to know why the tackle just let me go for whatever reason,” Barr said during UCLA’s group media session at Sony Pictures Studios. “He should be standing up here and talking to you guys, because he’s the reason why I was able to make that play.”

The 2013 Bruins took the stage a much different team from last season, with first-team All-Pac 12 selection Barr and rising junior offensive lineman Xavier Su’a-Filo flanking a now-proven coach Jim Mora.

And while Barr, a rising senior who led the Bruins with 21.5 tackles for loss last season, enters his senior year as a potential 2014 first-round draft pick and Heisman Trophy candidate, and Su’a-Filo heads into fall with the versatility to start at either guard or tackle, this UCLA football team still has some uncertainty to it, particularly in the secondary.

“First and foremost, we have a very depleted secondary,” Mora said. “And we’re going to be playing four players back there, or five or six, whatever package we’re in, that really haven’t played, ever, at this level. So that will be a challenge.”

Incoming freshmen defensive backs Priest Willis, Tahaan Goodman and Jalen Ortiz will head to Cal State San Bernardino, the site of UCLA’s fall camp, with a legitimate chance to fill UCLA football’s deepest need, while a Bruin offensive line that started three redshirt freshmen last season has grown a year older and will be thrown into intense competition come August.

UCLA will debut seven new offensive linemen this fall, leaving Mora with plenty of options to experiment with. Who will earn consistent reps, however, is yet to be determined as the Bruins have only competed in student-athlete-run conditioning workouts this summer, leaving even fellow offensive linemen with a wait-and-see attitude.

“Man, it’s really hard to tell,” Su’a-Filo said. “I’ll be able to tell you the first week of camp, but up to this point, I’ve just seen them all conditioning and, you know, some guys are more in shape than others. But as far as that goes, no one has jumped out to me.”

Great Expectations

The Bruins still have several starting positions in question both on offense and defense, but unquestioned is UCLA’s legitimacy in the eyes of the Pac-12 media. In a poll of 25 Pac-12 media members, UCLA was selected as the favorite to win this year’s Pac-12 South title by a slim margin over Arizona State, with Oregon the favorite to win both the Pac-12 North and 2013 Pac-12 Championship game.

UCLA’s third straight Pac-12 South title might not be entirely out of reach with a win over Arizona State on Nov. 23, but the Bruins have a tougher 2013 schedule overall. The team will face 2012 Bowl Championship Series participants Stanford and Oregon on the road in consecutive weeks in October, with a mid-September non-conference road test in Nebraska to boot.

“Our schedule is a challenge,” Mora said. “This conference that we play in is a challenge, but I think these young men would tell you that, being the competitors that they are and we are as a football team, we relish those challenges.”

Targeting Player Safety

In his address preceding the media day events, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott outlined, in addition to expanded live TV coverage and practice regulations, a more concerted focus conference-wide on student-athlete well-being. Scott announced the conference’s partnership with USA Football’s Heads Up Football campaign, which centers on concussion awareness.

“The health and well-being of student-athletes should be paramount,” Scott said. “We have made progress in head trauma in college football, but more emphasis on health and safety would improve college athletics at the highest level.”

Extremely controversial in the past few weeks has been college football’s new targeting rule, which allows officials to eject players who hit or target defenseless players above the shoulders, effective this season. While Barr, among other UCLA defenders, will have to take the rule in stride, they will have little to no time for a major overhaul in tackling technique.

“I understand the rule, but as a defensive player it’s going to be difficult to fully adjust my game to all of that rule,” Barr said. “If I get penalized because of it, then so be it, but I’m going to play the way I play football.”

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