Four Bruins Out For Bowl Game

According to reports from the Los Angeles Times:

Three UCLA football players – safety Tony Dye, guard Albert Cid, and reserve linebacker Isaiah Bowens – failed to handle their business in the classroom and were ruled academically ineligible for the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl in San Francisco next Saturday.

Dye and Cid were starters, and Dye was listed as questionable for the game against Illinois anyway due to his ankle being sprained.

To add to this misfortune, backup quarterback Richard Brehaut was suspended for the bowl game on New Year’s Eve because he violated team rules, leaving Darius Bell and Nick Crissman to serve behind Kevin Prince.

Dye, Cid and Bowens have no excuse for failing to earn the minimum grade point average required to be eligible, what with all the resources that Bruin athletes have at their disposal:

Mandatory tutoring,

Mandatory study hall,

Priority enrollment,

Ability to check out laptops for homework and writing papers while on away trips on demand, and…

Proctors readily available to monitor exams on the road.

If I had all those resources, well, I won’t divulge the GPA I had while I was a student at UCLA, but I will say that it would have been a grade point higher, and I would have most likely graduated Magna Cum Laude and made Phi Beta Kappa.

As for Brehaut, let’s just say that he royally screwed up and is continuing to not match his potential, and leave it at that.

Here’s what else is up with football:

New head coach Jim L. Mora made it clear that he absolutely will not put up with any “Over The Wall”, ditch day stuff when he officially takes over the Bruins’ coaching duties, saying:

“It’s completely unacceptable and will not be a part of the program going forward…It’s a privilege, not a right, to play football for the UCLA Bruins. With the commitment you make when you sign on here comes a commitment to do what is asked of you.”

Mora continued,

“…my general feeling is if they want to skip out on practice and skip over the wall, they might as well keep on going…I hope they had fun going over that wall (which the team did on Tuesday), because it’s the last time it is going to happen.”

“It might happen again but you won’t see those guys on the field the next day.”

Personally, I have one thing to say in regards to Mora’s comments:

HALLELUJAH!

It seems that the new head man in Westwood is serious about turning the football fortunes around; those players who are not serious enough about returning UCLA to the upper-level status it once enjoyed better get out of the way.

And that’s a good thing to see.