We had our suspicions. That 2-0 record wasn’t built on
granite.
No, it was more like Silly Putty ““ solid by definition,
but woefully unstable. It was two games and two wins, but close to
zero revealed about just how good this team is.
And now, after seeing UCLA on the wrong end of a thorough
domination, we are left to wonder.
Are these the real Bruins, the ones we feared might be run over
by Buffaloes, Ducks and assorted other wildlife? Or can we chalk
the 62 yards rushing and frightening lack of any offensive
direction to something else?
Can we attribute it to looking past Colorado to, uh, San Diego
State? Please.
Being the unfortunate next opponent to a team that had been
embarrassed a week ago? Maybe, but wasn’t that exactly what
the Bruins said they had been preparing for all week?
Becoming paralyzed in the face of an offensive juggernaut? Hard
to tell given Colorado’s 6.2 yards per play average, but this
was also a team that managed all of four first downs against USC
just seven days ago.
Come on, I can get five first downs playing Tecmo Super Bowl
with my incisors.
Now, this is by no means a formal State of the Bruins Address or
any reason to just say the hell with it and start camping out in
front of Pauley right now. Both coaches are (you guessed it) taking
things one game at a time. Gary Barnett conceded, “It’s
hard to get your guys up to play a team that showed on film the way
we showed” and Bob Toledo figured, “Last week, they
(Colorado) misfired, and this week, they were running on all
cylinders.”
And maybe they’re right. Maybe the Bruins are better than
this and maybe Colorado was simply better than it had been against
USC.
Even if that’s true, it doesn’t make disappear the
laundry list of headaches that emerged from Saturday
afternoon’s thrashing (and make no mistake, Colorado ran the
Bruins up and down that field with ease, no matter how close the
score seems).
The 62 rushing yards are only Chapter One of the story. So
overmatched were both of the Bruin lines that Colorado’s
running game generated disturbing visions of its shellacking of
Nebraska last season, which remains one of the most unstoppable
rushing performances in recent memory.
Add to that the sobering fact that UCLA’s two touchdowns
came not from legitimate drives but from (1) a wide receiver option
pass and (2) a garbage time score, and you can see why
there’s some work to do this week, even in preparation for
0-4 SDSU.
Again, we’re not asking for the world here. But when the
Bruins are down 21-7 and drive to a first and goal at the three and
a half-yard line, a touchdown is a reasonable expectation,
right?
Right?
Apparently not. The Bruins moved backward to the seven on two
straight fruitless rushes and then proceeded to take a
tear-out-your-hair 12 men in the huddle penalty and subsequent
field goal.
And that’s when the natives began to get restless, voicing
displeasure with Cory Paus by chanting “Olson, Olson,”
in that humiliating Darryl Strawberry tone. You know the one.
You’re doing it right now, as a matter of fact.
(By The Way: Is there a single more brutal task than trying to
run the card show at halftime? I swear, chimney sweeps have it
easier. But until we can actually see the show on the big
television ““ I know, it’s a groundbreaking concept
““ it’s going to be rough going for the Card
Jockeys.)
Paus wasn’t horrible. His use of the word
“decent” in evaluating his performance is pretty on
point, but it was Paus – and not the measurably more inexperienced
Robert Hodge from Colorado ““ that committed the one big
turnover, the one that swung the balance to CU.
Extrapolating, one interception against Colorado might be three
against Oregon or USC. It could also be none.
That uncertainty aside, what’s important is that what we
saw was a case of bad luck, bad matchups, bad something besides bad
omens.
CU exposed a glaring susceptibility to play action and
misdirection, while proving once again that the best way to halt
the UCLA passing game is to pressure Paus into throwing dangerously
high and get him on the run.
But don’t hang everything on Paus. For whatever reason,
the entire team’s Saturday effort was considerably more
uninspired than in the two wins, and the Bruin players accepted the
blame for that almost all-around.
This team is young, but it can still win games. I truly believe
it. Thing is, my voice sounded a lot stronger when I said the same
things last week.