UCLA Football: Checklist for a title run – Recruiting, Chemistry & Depth
By Pete Kang
Go Joe Bruin wraps up this 3-part series by tackling the importance of Recruiting, Team Chemistry and Roster Depth and how UCLA Football fits in.
In 2017, we’re all going to find out if Josh Rosen and his UCLA Bruins teammates are finally going to give the fans what they want in Westwood!
RELATED: Checklist for a title run – Game Management, Fog of Football
In this final edition to the series, I look at three that will help UCLA Football to be successful in 2017: recruiting, chemistry and depth.
UCLA Football Recruiting
UCLA Football fans want their team to win a National Championship. Like many teams in the Power 5 Conferences (Pac-12, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, ACC), the Bruins’ roster is packed with highly touted, supremely talented former high school athletes. Through relentless searches, there is rarely a “stone left unturned”, in seeking the next generational talent.
These athletes are weighed, measured and college football programs across the land are found to be wanting.
Do you remember the last time you attended a peewee football game? Still remember that one kid, number 24? Lil man that ran circles around everyone, his own team even and biked over everyone, his own team even? Haha Yes, that glorious 8-year old, is now a 5 or 4 star recruit, depending on which scouting service is reporting on them.
This is when you feel something pleasant in your tummy, a seed of belief that you witnessed something a little historic when you saw tiny 24 running around. Ok. Hey!! Now that guy is a Bruin! Great! But you know what? Now that he’s on YOUR team, you want to know a few things about him.
Is he coachable? Is he a good teammate? He better be! Because playing football in the FBS for a Power 5 means everyone has talent, the kind of talent that can hide poor work ethic and attitude in high school, where talent level is often watered down, aside from Super Leagues that exist in and around every American metropolis and throughout big football factory states like California, Texas, Georgia and Florida.
So any new UCLA Football recruit, however talented and regardless of that tiny little place in your heart and memory where 8-year old #24 resides, he must be coachable and hard working or else the player will never ever improve.
UCLA Football Team Chemistry
As far as being a good teammate goes, most everyone has probably been on a horrible date, so you all know how important Chemistry is when bringing people together for a common purpose and goal. As each individual player strives for greatness, regardless of the pundits’ perceived ceiling level of the player, and with the team’s glory and not his own at the center of his heart as football is concerned, then the team should improve most quickly and efficiently under these conditions.
That is, if the coaches are worth all that very nice dough! Coach Mora? I’m still down with you! But I like Wittingham in Utah too! That guy crushes some team’s hopes every year, while it seems like ours are always getting crushed. -Whistle Blows- Penalty. Digression.
Related Story: Las Vegas releases projected win totals, UCLA in top half of Pac-12
UCLA Football Roster Depth
A championship season in FBS college football requires one more element to maybe, just possibly reach: The Show. Making it to the last and most meaningful game of the college football season means many things for sure, but without a shadow of a doubt, the team either remained completely healthy throughout the season, which is unlikely to impossible OR having a stacked roster provided the team with the necessary roster DEPTH, to keep the machine rolling till February!
Most recently, UCLA’s crosstown rivals at USC experienced a program resurgence, it seems, by winning the Rose Bowl in 2017. This was after more than a few years of middle-of-the-road play and results. Why? Even with NCAA sanctions from the Caroll/Bush era stripping scholarships away from the Trojans, USC was still able to fill starting positions with 5 and 4 star players, but the reduced number of available scholarships put a heavy, unmanageable burden on the Kiffin and Sarkisian regimes. Still, the Trojans were as deep as any Saban coached Alabama team, during Pete Caroll’s tenure as head ball coach for USC! The sanctions are over and done with. That sucks!! Moving on.
In level of importance, roster depth seems second only to Down and Distance, if a team wants to have a chance at a National Championship! I know, I know. Putting the horses ahead of the chess game seems to make you feel better, but no. Very, very close.
There are so many things that have to go right for a team to be the last one standing at season’s end. Preparation, mindset and proper execution are all controllable to a large degree by the players and coaches, but injuries are obviously not. Everything we have discussed today is of vital importance if UCLA is to defy all conventional wisdom and play football in February. It can be done.
There is one last thing I must add before this huge, grammatically convicted run-on sentence is to truly end with everyone’s peace of mind. In 2017, Josh Rosen has got to spin It! If he is not one of the top three finalist for the Heisman Memorial Trophy in ’17, then UCLA fans will experience a similar feeling at seasons end in 2017 as they felt last year, the moment we learned that soft tissue had impinged upon and inflamed a nerve in his throwing shoulder that is vital to the launching of a football.
Stop! You’re adding too much pressure on him, Pete! Pffffft! That’s a scoff and here’s another. What if Josh can’t handle that statement? Then just go ahead and get started working towards that boutique hedge fund staffed with underprivileged kids from the Wharton School. Dibs! No. Josh is fine. He could be President one day. It’s crossed his mind for sure. You can Take that to Vegas. -Whistle Blows-Digression. Of course!
Next: Go Joe Bruin predicts UCLA's 2017 record
Fans, are you uber talented and smart, but have yet to reach anywhere near your full potential? That’s our Quarterback too!! And that’s also setting up the next article.