Offseason edition looking back on the 2010 season

2010 marked season three of the Rick Neuheisel era. This was a very integral season to see if they could all be put together. After the first season in 2008 where both the offense and defense struggled. 2009 showed promise because the defense was dominate on occasions. But both 2008 and 2009 showed bottom 25 offense each of those years. So 2010 needed to be the year that Neuheisel could piece it together and get the UCLA offense back to slinging it again.

That simply just did not happen. Similar to 2008, both the offense, and the defense struggled. The defense saw quite a few players go onto the NFL and regressed from 2009. They gave up over 30 points per game, which was 86th in the nation. Then the offense wasn’t any better, only scoring 20.2 points per game. That was good for 104th in the nation. The Bruins finished 4-8 again and were off to a 15-21 start in Neuheisel’s first three years, leaving many puzzled on the hiring decision.

The positive on the season is UCLA had back-to-back upsets on No. 23 Houston and No. 7 Texas. The defense played great in both of those games. While the offense started to show some promise. The team rotated Richard Brehaut and Kevin Prince at quarterback. Neither one really had any success moving the offense and the quarterback carousel started to become a theme in the Neuheisel era. Sophomore Johnathan Franklin was the bright spot as he ran the ball 214 times for 1,127 yards and eight touchdowns.

This was the season that would seemingly put Neuheisel on the hot seat. He needed to turn things around and needed to do it fast. Fans were getting restless as he was not any better than Karl Dorrell. The coach they let go to go out and get Neuheisel. He needed a quarterback to determine the identity of the offense and to build his defense back up to emulate 2009. If he wasn’t able to do that 2011 would be his possible last season with the team.