Long considered to be the Jim Mora’s greatest adversary while he’s been the UCLA Football head coach, the Stanford Cardinal are no doubt a tough opponent. The Bruins will face off with the Cardinal in two weeks and their kickoff time was just announced.
It hasn’t been a great win/loss relationship for Mora and Stanford. Under his direction the UCLA Football team hasn’t been able to score a win against the Cardinal either at home or on the road. The closest game in recent memory was last year’s heartbreaking loss at home when the Bruins, despite being without QB Josh Rosen, kept the game close until the fourth quarter.
That game was the conference opener last season following three non-conference games. That situation is identical in 2017. This time around though the Bruins will kick off at 7:30 p.m. instead of 5:00 p.m.
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A late start might reinforce the “east coast bias” conspiracy but the later start could be a welcome change after having an early start against the Memphis Tigers this week. If you’ve been reading the Go Joe Bruin articles as of late, and you should be, you know that the UCLA football run defense is a little suspect. There are silver linings through the numbers but the fact remains that Stanford wants to run the football and UCLA struggles to stop runners.
Another wrinkle that has emerged in the last 24 hours have been the rumors that the Indianapolis Colts are targeting Stanford head coach David Shaw as their top target for the same position. The Colts are basically a dumpster fire right now and are without their stud QB, Andrew Luck, who Shaw worked with when he was in college. The fit is potentially a homerun but it will be interesting to see if Shaw is willing to leave and if the Colts pull the trigger quickly should next Sunday’s game be a disaster.
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We might be looking forward to the Stanford game now but the Bruins had better focus on this week’s game as they take on a very tough Memphis team. Still it is hard to not get excited or dread this game. While the east coast sleeps, there’s always the chance, albeit slim at this point, that the UCLA Football team gets a chance to prove why the west coast is the best coast.