Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Time for Clippers to take over LA...
The Clippers finally broke the curse, by making the trade for PG Chris Paul, they've finally gotten an elite player in his prime to come to the Clips without having drafted him. By giving up SG Eric Gordon, SF Al Aminu, C Chris Kaman, and Minnesota's unprotected #1 pick they got arguably the best Point since Magic and the best combo in LA since Prime Kobe and Shaq.
The Clippers are now the best team in LA. Compare the starting 5's as neither team has any real depth of value, but not many NBA teams do anyway. The Clippers are better at PG, SF, and in my opinion PF. While the Lakers boast the better 2 Guard in Kobe and better C in Bynum. But Chris Paul is by far the best player on either squad, Kobe's 33 years old now and his game is becoming strictly jump shots without the slash game he started out with, and with a contract that pays him 25 to 30 million over the next three years, there's no chance for the Lakers to get anyone else in Free Agency. Lob City is in full effect, the starting lineups below show the Clippers have a younger, faster, and more athletic lineup from top to bottom leading to moments like this...
Clippers Lakers
PG: Chris Paul PG: Derek Fisher
SG: Chauncey Billups SG: Kobe Bryant
SF: Caron Butler SF: Devin Ebanks
PF: Blake Griffin PF: Pau Gasol
C: DeAndre Jordan C: Andrew Bynum
The Clippers have already started the season with a blowout victory on the road over Golden State whereas the Lakers have fallen to 0-2 on the season blowing a lead in an opening loss to Chicago on Christmas Day and following that up with a tired performance on the road in a loss to Sacramento in the middle of their back to back to back to begin the season. With Bynum suspended for the next 2 games as well the Lakers could be staring an 0-4 start in the face. Hey it's not like it could get worse for Kobe to begin the season... right?
Oh...
The Clippers are now the best team in LA. Compare the starting 5's as neither team has any real depth of value, but not many NBA teams do anyway. The Clippers are better at PG, SF, and in my opinion PF. While the Lakers boast the better 2 Guard in Kobe and better C in Bynum. But Chris Paul is by far the best player on either squad, Kobe's 33 years old now and his game is becoming strictly jump shots without the slash game he started out with, and with a contract that pays him 25 to 30 million over the next three years, there's no chance for the Lakers to get anyone else in Free Agency. Lob City is in full effect, the starting lineups below show the Clippers have a younger, faster, and more athletic lineup from top to bottom leading to moments like this...
Clippers Lakers
PG: Chris Paul PG: Derek Fisher
SG: Chauncey Billups SG: Kobe Bryant
SF: Caron Butler SF: Devin Ebanks
PF: Blake Griffin PF: Pau Gasol
C: DeAndre Jordan C: Andrew Bynum
The Clippers have already started the season with a blowout victory on the road over Golden State whereas the Lakers have fallen to 0-2 on the season blowing a lead in an opening loss to Chicago on Christmas Day and following that up with a tired performance on the road in a loss to Sacramento in the middle of their back to back to back to begin the season. With Bynum suspended for the next 2 games as well the Lakers could be staring an 0-4 start in the face. Hey it's not like it could get worse for Kobe to begin the season... right?
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
UCLA hires Jim L Mora - Reaction
UCLA hired Jim L Mora as it's Head Football Coach on December 13th hoping he'll be the one to turn the program around after the ridiculously embarrassing 50-0 defeat to SC that led to the demise of Rick Neuheisel with good reason.
The bottom line is I like this hire a good amount. He has no prior ties to UCLA which is a must for the new coach; Toledo, Dorrell, and Neu were all prior UCLA assistants and those in house hires didn't pan out in the long run. Second he's been an NFL head coach and that works wonders with kids in recruiting as they all want to be in the league. And finally I love that he's a defensive minded coach, the entire PAC 12 outside of UCLA and UTAH have offensive minded coaches, it can't hurt to be a bit different from the rest. There are 3 things Mora needs to do if he's going to be the guy to turn UCLA around.
1.) Build a Staff - Mora has made some strong hires in the early going poaching Ace Recruiters such as OL Coach Adrian Klemm from SMU, RB Coach Steve Broussard from ASU, and DB Coach Demetrice Martin from Washington. Each of these three were considered the top recruiters on their respective staffs. Mora then hired OC and QB Coach Noel Mazzone from ASU who has led a huge turnaround in the Sun Devil Offense the past two years.
Coach Mora also decided to keep aboard Marques Tuiasosopo as TE Coach and Inoke Breckerfield as DL Coach even though the Defensive Line was one of the bigger disappointments of the 2011 Season. But Breckerfield has a ton of ties to Hawaiian recruiting as well as the Poly community so there is good reason for his staying. CJM still needs to hire a WR Coach, Special Teams Coach, LB Coach, and Defensive Coordinator to round out the staff.
2.) Recruit like a madman - CJM has already picked up 5 recruits since taking over landing WR/DB Taylor Lagace from Arcadia HS, LB Kenny Orjioke from Georgia, DB Marcus Rios, DB Ishmael Adams from Oaks Christian HS, and JUCO OL Alexandru Ceachir. The key here is going to be Mora signing some highly rated recruits while trimming the fat from current Rick Neuheisel commits. It was well known that barring a miracle CRN was going to be fired leading to more and more top recruits shunning UCLA and lesser sleeper recruits taking up those offers. Mora needs only to recruit top PAC 12 athletes.
3.) Change the Culture - This is the biggest challenge for CJM coming to UCLA. There is a strong culture of mediocrity and accepting middling results for UCLA Football. Part of the problem is that many consider UCLA to be a basketball school that does not truly care about winning in football, a belief rooted in the fact that facilities are not up to par and prior to CJM's large contract (2.4 million per year) UCLA was notoriously cheap with paying coaches and assistants.
Then there is ridiculous loser traditions such as going "Over the Wall", a tradition where UCLA players during bowl preparations ditch practice by jumping over the spaulding field wall. Thankfully Mora seems intent on putting an end to that... The culture at UCLA needs to match the spend big to win big mentality that every other school is playing with if there is to be a chance of competing for PAC 12 Championships. Here's hoping Jim L Mora can do it.
The bottom line is I like this hire a good amount. He has no prior ties to UCLA which is a must for the new coach; Toledo, Dorrell, and Neu were all prior UCLA assistants and those in house hires didn't pan out in the long run. Second he's been an NFL head coach and that works wonders with kids in recruiting as they all want to be in the league. And finally I love that he's a defensive minded coach, the entire PAC 12 outside of UCLA and UTAH have offensive minded coaches, it can't hurt to be a bit different from the rest. There are 3 things Mora needs to do if he's going to be the guy to turn UCLA around.
1.) Build a Staff - Mora has made some strong hires in the early going poaching Ace Recruiters such as OL Coach Adrian Klemm from SMU, RB Coach Steve Broussard from ASU, and DB Coach Demetrice Martin from Washington. Each of these three were considered the top recruiters on their respective staffs. Mora then hired OC and QB Coach Noel Mazzone from ASU who has led a huge turnaround in the Sun Devil Offense the past two years.
Coach Mora also decided to keep aboard Marques Tuiasosopo as TE Coach and Inoke Breckerfield as DL Coach even though the Defensive Line was one of the bigger disappointments of the 2011 Season. But Breckerfield has a ton of ties to Hawaiian recruiting as well as the Poly community so there is good reason for his staying. CJM still needs to hire a WR Coach, Special Teams Coach, LB Coach, and Defensive Coordinator to round out the staff.
2.) Recruit like a madman - CJM has already picked up 5 recruits since taking over landing WR/DB Taylor Lagace from Arcadia HS, LB Kenny Orjioke from Georgia, DB Marcus Rios, DB Ishmael Adams from Oaks Christian HS, and JUCO OL Alexandru Ceachir. The key here is going to be Mora signing some highly rated recruits while trimming the fat from current Rick Neuheisel commits. It was well known that barring a miracle CRN was going to be fired leading to more and more top recruits shunning UCLA and lesser sleeper recruits taking up those offers. Mora needs only to recruit top PAC 12 athletes.
3.) Change the Culture - This is the biggest challenge for CJM coming to UCLA. There is a strong culture of mediocrity and accepting middling results for UCLA Football. Part of the problem is that many consider UCLA to be a basketball school that does not truly care about winning in football, a belief rooted in the fact that facilities are not up to par and prior to CJM's large contract (2.4 million per year) UCLA was notoriously cheap with paying coaches and assistants.
Then there is ridiculous loser traditions such as going "Over the Wall", a tradition where UCLA players during bowl preparations ditch practice by jumping over the spaulding field wall. Thankfully Mora seems intent on putting an end to that... The culture at UCLA needs to match the spend big to win big mentality that every other school is playing with if there is to be a chance of competing for PAC 12 Championships. Here's hoping Jim L Mora can do it.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Rick's Out! What Happened
There was no question this needed to happen, Rick is a great Bruin whose passion for and loyalty to UCLA is without question but WOW this just did not work out at all. How bad was Rick's tenure at UCLA? Well his record of 21-28 makes Karl Dorrell 35-27 look like a miracle worker. Hopefully Neuheisel can put that SC Law Degree to work because I don't see a way in which he gets another Division 1 Coaching Job in the immediate future.
There's been numerous problems during Rick's tenure that led to him hitting the coaching firing squad but let's break down the big 3 right here...
1) La Pistola! - Rick decides after spending four days with the Nevada coaches that a switch to the pistol was a wonderful idea, this coming off his second year where the Bruins went 7-6 and Prince looked like a half decent QB. The idea was that the Pistol would reignite the run game that UCLA had been lacking in his first 2 seasons but he obviously didn't consider the negative effect this would have on the passing game, QB footwork, and also the Injuries that derailed a few Bruin Careers not to mention that his Hall of Fame OC Norm Chow had no idea how to run it and didn't care to learn. Rick put the Pistol straight to his UCLA career thanks to the switch! Just an awful decision the whole way around.
2) The Kevin Prince Man-Crush - Prince had a promising freshman year for the Bruins but then it was all downhill from there. His inability to stay healthy throughout the next two seasons was another reason for the Pistol's failure. He gradually became a worse passer throughout his career, never showing the gun that he had as a Frosh. After passing for 2,050 yds that first year, he has not come close since. While every practice report this summer had Richard Brehaut as the top QB, Neuheisel elected to go with Prince, a decision that cost him most notably a chance to even compete with Texas as Prince threw 3 picks in 7 1st Quarter passes... wow
3) Hiring Joe Tresey - This is not all Rick's fault in the sense that he wanted to hire Randy Shannon (Cheap UCLA Admins wouldn't pay up) then Rocky Seto (Foolish UCLA fanbase pressured a veto since he was a Trojan) but ended up with his 3rd choice, an out of work college DC Joe Tresey. There's a reason that when Brian Kelly left Cincinatti to go to Notre Dame he decided to leave this guy behind. While his stats were almost impressive with the Bearcats, he was also playing with Kelly's dynamic offense forcing teams to constantly play from behind and allowing his D to just tee off. This year he just absolutely buried the hatchet in Rick with one of the worst and most dissapointing defenses in the entire country, even with NFL talent at every level with DE Datone Jones, LB Jordan Zumwalt, and S Tony Dye the Bruin defense floundered allowing 38, 49, 45, 48, 31, and 50! points in their 6 losses. This guy might be the worst DC in the entire country getting shredded by every decent QB on the schedule, you probably won't see this guy working a Division 1 sideline in quite some time.
So now Rick is done. Taking the sad and lonely walk to Head Coach purgatory... I wish the best for Rick, he's a great Bruin and my god you can tell the man cares! Good luck to him!
There's been numerous problems during Rick's tenure that led to him hitting the coaching firing squad but let's break down the big 3 right here...
1) La Pistola! - Rick decides after spending four days with the Nevada coaches that a switch to the pistol was a wonderful idea, this coming off his second year where the Bruins went 7-6 and Prince looked like a half decent QB. The idea was that the Pistol would reignite the run game that UCLA had been lacking in his first 2 seasons but he obviously didn't consider the negative effect this would have on the passing game, QB footwork, and also the Injuries that derailed a few Bruin Careers not to mention that his Hall of Fame OC Norm Chow had no idea how to run it and didn't care to learn. Rick put the Pistol straight to his UCLA career thanks to the switch! Just an awful decision the whole way around.
2) The Kevin Prince Man-Crush - Prince had a promising freshman year for the Bruins but then it was all downhill from there. His inability to stay healthy throughout the next two seasons was another reason for the Pistol's failure. He gradually became a worse passer throughout his career, never showing the gun that he had as a Frosh. After passing for 2,050 yds that first year, he has not come close since. While every practice report this summer had Richard Brehaut as the top QB, Neuheisel elected to go with Prince, a decision that cost him most notably a chance to even compete with Texas as Prince threw 3 picks in 7 1st Quarter passes... wow
3) Hiring Joe Tresey - This is not all Rick's fault in the sense that he wanted to hire Randy Shannon (Cheap UCLA Admins wouldn't pay up) then Rocky Seto (Foolish UCLA fanbase pressured a veto since he was a Trojan) but ended up with his 3rd choice, an out of work college DC Joe Tresey. There's a reason that when Brian Kelly left Cincinatti to go to Notre Dame he decided to leave this guy behind. While his stats were almost impressive with the Bearcats, he was also playing with Kelly's dynamic offense forcing teams to constantly play from behind and allowing his D to just tee off. This year he just absolutely buried the hatchet in Rick with one of the worst and most dissapointing defenses in the entire country, even with NFL talent at every level with DE Datone Jones, LB Jordan Zumwalt, and S Tony Dye the Bruin defense floundered allowing 38, 49, 45, 48, 31, and 50! points in their 6 losses. This guy might be the worst DC in the entire country getting shredded by every decent QB on the schedule, you probably won't see this guy working a Division 1 sideline in quite some time.
So now Rick is done. Taking the sad and lonely walk to Head Coach purgatory... I wish the best for Rick, he's a great Bruin and my god you can tell the man cares! Good luck to him!
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Rick's Last Stand? - USC vs UCLA Preview
It's rivalry time... The 6-5 (5-3 Pac12) Bruins kick off against the 9-2 (6-2) USC Trojans tonight at 7 for the Victory Bell. UCLA has already locked up their spot in the PAC 12 Championship game next weekend as the South Champ since both Utah and Arizona State lost last night, oh and also cause that school across town CHEATS! making them ineligible for any post-season games. Bruin Coach Rick Neuheisel enters the game on an extreme hot seat with some saying he has to win in order to keep his job, I'm skeptical on this big time, UCLA is a public school, a cheap when it comes to football public school, and I just don't see them being able buyout a 1.25 million dollar contract when students are protesting tuition hikes on campus. This came comes down to two things 1) Can the Bruins slow down Matt Barkley? 2) Can they run the ball with the success needed to win (Over 200 yds)? This is Rick's last stand, his program needs this bigtime.
UCLA Offense vs USC Defense - The Bruins have the 3rd best rushing attack in the conference averaging over 199 yds per game with their three headed attack of QB Kevin Prince and RB's Jonathan Franklin and Derrick Coleman. They are going to need a huge game from these three in order to control the clock and keep the SC Offense off the field. Prince is going to have to hit a few deep balls to create space for the run game, looking out for the guy who did this, Senior WR Nelson Rosario. SC counters with the 3rd best rushing D in the Pac12 allowing only 110 yds per game on the ground, while starting 3 freshmen at linebacker in Hayes Pullard, Dion Bailey, & Lamar Dawson, an impressive feat for Monte Kiffin's D. If the Bruins are going to have any shot at winning they're going to need to get at least 200 yds tonight. Prince is going to have to play the best game of his career to get the upset.
Advantage: USC
UCLA Defense vs USC Offense - There's no other way to put this.. Matt Barkley is on fire right now. The guy is just putting up ridiculous stats this year throwing for over 3100 yds with 33tds and only 7 picks. The Bruins have the 3rd best pass defense in the Pac12 allowing only 216 yds a game through the air. The key for the Bruins will be to get pressure on Barkley with their front four led by DE Datone Jones and DT Cassius Marsh while still containing the SC running game of RB Curtis McNeal and Marc Tyler putting the team in 3rd and long situations. There's no other way to put this, the Bruins have flat out been crap defensively on 3rd down conversions allowing teams an over 49% conversion rate. Rick knows what this game means to his program, expect UCLA DC Joe Tresey to give SC a ton of looks but Barkley just might be too "en fuego" to stop.
Advantage: USC
Special Teams - Neither team is particularly great in the return game with both being middle of the pack in kickoff return average while the Bruins are dead last in punt return average thanks to super-slow returner Taylor Embree. While the Trojans have a better kicking game with Frosh K Andre Heidari going 15-18 the Bruins counter with one of the best Punters in the country in JR Jeff Locke. Not too much difference there.
Advantage - Even
Coaching - Lane Kiffin has proven himself as a collegiate coach this season to most, though his record is only 24-13 at this point, he's done a solid job of keeping his team playing hard even though they're on sanctions including the big win over Oregon last weekend on the road. Rick has struggled rebuilding the UCLA program since taking over for Karl Dorrell witha 21-27 record through four seasons. While USC has Legendaddy DC Monte Kiffin, Tampa 2 owner, UCLA's OC Mike Johnson has shown himself to be a good one. The difference between these two is Rick needs this game so much more than Kiffin and should come out with a win at all costs mentality, something similar to 2006.
Advantage: UCLA
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