Last Monday, Rick Neuheisel sat in front of the assembled media and commented on what has transpired so far this season.
Six games into his first season as the UCLA football coach, Neuheisel said his offense is not yet fully developed and his defense has given up too many points. And while he is not happy to be 2-4 and tied for seventh in the Pac-10, Neuheisel, ever the optimist, said he is pleased with the effort he has seen from the players on the practice field and in the games.
“As I said, when you have players that are playing as hard as our kids are playing and giving us what they are giving on the practice field, then there is always hope and we’re getting closer,” Neuheisel said. “So we’re going to keep slugging away until we feel good about it.”
This season has been somewhat of a roller-coaster ride for the Bruins. A season that started with an upset victory over then-No. 18 Tennessee has also seen the utter embarrassment of a 59-0 loss to BYU, deflating losses to Fresno State and Oregon, and a dominating win over Washington State.
An area which has drawn a large portion of the outside criticism thus far has been the Bruin offense. With a junior college transfer at quarterback in Kevin Craft, an offensive line bereft of experience and stability, and a rash of injuries to key offensive threats, the Bruins have accumulated just 1,783 yards (ninth in the Pac-10) and 120 points (seventh in the Pac-10).
Yet Neuheisel believes that the Bruin offense has yet to reach its potential.
“I would say that we are as yet not a fully-developed offense,” Neuheisel said. “And I know that’s frustrating for people when they say, “˜You’re halfway through your season, how could you not be fully developed?’ I think this is true of most programs that are starting new ““ in terms of an offense we’re a new program ““ it just takes awhile for everybody to kind of learn everybody, coaches and players alike.”
Neuheisel added that the reason why new offenses take awhile to develop is that they do not have adequate time.
“When you’re having to game plan particular defenses and different things are going in, you almost always find ways to get new things in there which now retards the development of all the stuff you’re trying to get done,” Neuheisel said. “And therein lies why first-year programs often time struggle, because it takes awhile to get all that done in the course of a season where you’re also trying to game plan for any particular opponent and change things so that it will work against that particular defense and so forth.”
Offensive coordinator Norm Chow believes he has seen improvement in the team’s first six games and that the players all want to turn the season around in the second half.
“Obviously we need to play better,” Chow said. “The record is not too hot. But we’ve improved and played better. I couldn’t be happier with the effort.”
Running back Kahlil Bell put his assessment of the offense’s performance a bit more bluntly.
“Good at times, horrible at other times, mediocre at times,” Bell said. “It’s been a very up-and-down season offensively, partly because of injuries, partly because of new guys stepping in and trying to fill some roles. We just got to keep grinding.”
One player who has continued to improve throughout the season is Craft. After starting off the year by throwing four interceptions in the first half against Tennessee, Craft has settled down, throwing just two since. In the past two games, Craft has thrown for 513 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. Craft admitted that six games into the season, he now feels comfortable in the offense.
Chow, who has coached three Heisman-winning quarterbacks in his time, said he sees improvement in Craft’s play yet is aware of the struggles as well.
“He’s made good progress,” Chow said. “He’s a little frustrated; we all are a little frustrated, because we’re not winning.”
Going into the season, the Bruin defense was the supposed strength of the entire football team. However, thus far, the defense has largely underperformed. Six games into the season, the Bruin defense ranks sixth in the Pac-10 in total defense, eighth against the run and seventh against the pass, all of which has left defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker scratching his head at times.
“We’ve had some good games, some bad games,” Walker said. “Probably the thing I’m most disappointed ““ we’ve had a couple times, a couple chances to finish out some games. But terms of the improvement, we’ve definitely improved. We have six games left and hopefully by the end of the day, we can all look at each other and say we got a lot better.”
In order to get better, junior cornerback Alterraun Verner said it is a simple matter of making a play on the ball.
“We have to get our hands on (the ball) when it’s in the air, we got to try and get it. That’s basically it. Everything goes together: We have to get a good pass rush on the quarterback, linebackers got to get the drops, and then we got to make sure we cover our guy. And all that goes together, so we just got to improve starting in practice, make plays in practice and then it translates into the game.”
With six games left in the season and only two wins, the Bruins must finish at least 4-2 if they wish to become bowl eligible. For Neuheisel, a bowl berth would be great accomplishment for such a young team.
“That would be a terrific thing to accomplish,” Neuheisel said. “To be able to go 4-2 or better in the second half of the season would be a great thing for these youngsters and our coaching staff alike. But to do that you got to go one at a time, and so we just got to focus on Stanford.”