UCLA Football: Vegas-style Starting QB Odds

In case you didn’t know, Saturday marks the beginning of UCLA football’s fall camp and will further get us a look at how the Jim L. Mora regime will run things in Westwood.

Of course, the most talked about storyline in camp isn’t Mora’s way of doing things, especially now that Spring Practice is over and we finally got our glimpse of what this era will look like. The biggest question heading into the Bruins’ stay at CSU–San Bernardino is that of the starting quarterback job.

And there’s a bit of a divide among Bruins fans as to who should be the starter at this point. While the majority of UCLA fans are absolutely crazy for redshirt freshman Brett Hundley — who was tabbed as UCLA football’s savior last year when he signed on to play for the Bruins — a good chunk think Richard Brehaut could and should come away with the job. Hundley is favored for his potential and athleticism, and Brehaut is favored because he’s performed a hell of a lot better in practices than Hundley has.

The other candidates are pretty far back. Jerry Neuheisel is hilarious but being funny does not a UCLA quarterback make. That said, he actually looked good this past spring, but it’s clear that he’s not there, at least not yet. (He’s only a freshman, too.) T.J. Millweard probably falls behind Neuheisel and Mark Fafaul, a walk-on, has a total gun, but is still incredibly raw and will likely be sitting behind Millweard on the depth chart. Devin Fuller is also a longshot and may be damn near dead last, if only because he has yet to be seen by the UCLA coaching staff.

I’m forgetting someone, huh? Dammit. What’s his name? Rhymes with Devin Trince. He has that weird look on his fa– OH YEAH, KEVIN PRINCE. Let’s just say that Bruins fans will give up on life altogether if Prince ends up starting in 2012.

So to clear things up and have some fun with this, we’ve decided to create some obscure, Vegas-style odds for our QBs, based on the likelihood that they win the starting job. We won’t be including fan opinion here, because let’s be real, we want the Mora regime to ignore hype surrounding a player and just pick the guy who will perform the best.

Without further ado, here they are.

Richard Brehaut …….. 7/5

Brett Hundley ………… 2/1

Kevin Prince …………… 10/1

Jerry Neuheisel ……… 15/1

Devin Fuller …………… 22/1

T.J. Millweard ………… 22/1

Mark Fafaul …………….. 38/1

So obviously, there’s two tiers: Tier 1 which includes Brehaut and Hundley, and Tier 2 which is everyone the hell else.

Brehaut’s favored here because he looked much, much better in spring practice than anyone else did. For most of practice, he was on par with Hundley, and perhaps just a tad better, but he separated himself from the pack during the Spring Game at the Rose Bowl.

Hundley did good, though, and we expect him to do just as well. But consider, too, that Mazzone’s offense may favor Brehaut a tad more since he’s proven to be more accurate than Hundley was, mobility be damned.

As for Kevin Prince, we can hate on the dude and make jokes about him all we want — I most definitely will — but the fact of the matter is that he’s won the starting job over and over again and has shown flashes of brilliance. He has had his stupid moments, but the sample size is much larger for him.

Jerry Neuheisel should be favored among the rest of the crew, though, even if he is a long shot to take over the reigns. Meanwhile, Fuller is ahead of Fafaul based on how coveted he was out of high school. Fuller is, though, tied with Millweard. T.J. Millweard could be favored a tad over Fuller, though, because he’s the prototypical Mazzone QB.

We’ll see how this all works, though, and we’ll find out within the next couple of weeks who’ll be the starting QB. Until then, speculate away. And place a bet or two, but that’s probably illegal.

GO BRUINS!!!