Hey, remember that football team that still has two regular season games left? You know, that scrappy bunch who is still trying to become bowl-eligible with a win against either No. 2 Oregon or No. 11 USC?
Sure, our guys have a bye this week before they take on an Oregon club that has a red carpet stroll to the BCS national title game, but don’t forget about them.
It seems like now that UCLA basketball season has finally started and Ben Howland has a legitimate shot to hang banner No. 12 in Pauley, everybody wants to pretend that the football season has already ended. But it hasn’t.
In fact, the last month of the regular season will determine a whole lot more for the UCLA football program than it will for Oregon’s.
Some have already tuned out the remainder of the Bruins’ (5-5, 4-3 Pac-10) season, having accepted as fact that Karl Dorrell will be dismissed as head coach at the season’s end
After walking around UCLA’s football practice on Tuesday afternoon, I wondered whether or not the players have accepted this season as a failure and are ready to divert their attention to Darren Collison and Kevin Love.
Maybe it’s unfair to judge the pulse of a team heading into a bye week, but it seems like for a couple of weeks now the Bruins have been docile, passive even.
It’s a testament to how badly this season has gone for the Bruins and how far the expectations and energy surrounding the program have fallen.
Maybe this bye week is coming at the right time. Maybe it will give the Bruins some time to reflect on how the season unraveled so quickly and allow them to adjust their goals and put together a strong end to the year. Or maybe they’ll just move along and get trounced by the Pac-10’s best two teams to close out the first losing regular season of Karl Dorrell’s tenure.
“It’s a great time for a bye week, physically,” senior linebacker Christian Taylor said.
“I’m ready for the bye, and I’m sure everybody is. At this point in the season, you go into the training room and you don’t know what to get worked on because you feel sore everywhere.”
As far as the psychological state of the team, knowing that the season is ultimately a failure and hearing all the rumors that Dorrell’s job is in jeopardy, Taylor just gave me a “what can I say” shrug of the shoulders.
“Having a losing streak going into the bye, that’s bad,” he said. “But having any losing streak is bad.”
Asked whether or not the players will play with more abandon and energy now that the pressure, as well as the expectations, has evaporated, Taylor didn’t sound so emphatic.
“I hope guys will play loose like we’ve got nothing to lose, because we really don’t (have anything to lose),” said Taylor, as if he isn’t sure how the Bruins will respond in the last two games.
Taylor has become the unofficial spokesman for the “Disappointing Bruins,” but even he, the man who always is willing to chat, is sick and tired of all the speculation.
“I really don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he said. “You can only talk about this stuff for so long.”
And you can only watch losing football for so long. Be patient, UCLA fans, the season will be over soon enough. Pac-10 basketball starts just after New Year’s Day, anyway.