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UCLA Football: It’s not over, but it could be a long season

By Mike Regalado

PASADENA, CA - OCTOBER 01: Head coach Jim Mora of the UCLA Bruins looks on during the second half of a game against the Arizona Wildcats at the Rose Bowl on October 1, 2016 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
PASADENA, CA - OCTOBER 01: Head coach Jim Mora of the UCLA Bruins looks on during the second half of a game against the Arizona Wildcats at the Rose Bowl on October 1, 2016 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images) /
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Despite the off-season improvements, the UCLA Football team still has a lot of weaknesses, especially on the defense which has seemed to have taken a step back.

There is good news and bad news. The good news is that the UCLA Football offense is miles ahead where anybody thought they would be after last season. The bad news is the defense is not where it should be.

RELATED: UCLA injury report heading into Pac-12 play

We saw very clearly how the Bruins will be operating this season with the first three games of the against Texas A&M, Hawaii and Memphis.

Memphis, I believe, really showed the nation who UCLA is after a 48-45 shoot out in favor of the Tigers.  From this it seems as though there are two different perspectives: (1) the sky is falling and UCLA should shut down the football program or (2) calm down, it’s one loss and there is a lot of room to improve.

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The summary of the Memphis game is that Josh Rosen made a few bad decisions and the defense is, well, there is no defense.

Rosen is an excellent quarterback who made a few bad decisions, but that shouldn’t overshadow the fact that he has the most passing yards and touchdowns in the nation. He is a very, very good quarterback.

And there are those certain Bruin fans that hate excuses for the defense, but there needs to be a little wiggle room, especially for an injury-laden squad that lost a lot of players to graduation and the NFL Draft in the off-season.

Many fans point to coaching, which they have a point, but never being an offensive coordinator myself, I can imagine it’s pretty tough to have a fully functioning defense that has a ton of injuries, and is forced to play certain players in different spots or play different formations because of the lack of depth.

Certain Bruin fans are not crazy about DC Tom Bradley’s “bend but don’t break defense” because it seems to be breaking. When this style of football has all the players to execute that style, the defense does it’s job. But when they have to dip into  his reserves, it’s not as effective. No defense is.

Either way, UCLA seems to be in a holding pattern in trying to decide if they’re going to be a good team or continue to do what they did last year.

Next: 5 things we learned from the non-conference schedule

Things look promising and a few tweaks could change that, but how likely are the UCLA coaches to make those tweaks?  That is what could make this a long season. They have the potential to be a very good football team, but are being held back by the inability to change. The defense showed that they can make changes in the middle of the game, so can they make changes in the middle of the season?