UCLA Football: Spring Scrimmage Report

I’m sure that the coaches as well as the players in the UCLA football program were looking forward to this.

After a month of practice, Jim Mora made his unofficial Rose Bowl debut this past Saturday as his Bruins held their annual spring scrimmage before a decent (for a spring game) crowd of 13,000, which saw some excellent performances from the quarterbacks and receivers in particular.

Although a starter wasn’t named behind center, and won’t be until August 16 as Mora said, “I want to keep a competitive environment and, quite frankly, I didn’t think any of them really grabbed the job,” the three main candidates to guide UCLA’s offense did rather well.

Richard Brehaut clearly had the best day at quarterback as the senior completed 12 of 16 passes for 249 yards and four touchdowns, which included throws of 63 yards to Tyler Scott and 69 yards to Jerry Johnson.

Incumbent Kevin Prince was decent in completing 8 of 11 throws for 101 yards and two scoring throws, while Brett Hundley, the top recruit who is being counted on for the future, was 12-of-20 for 185 yards and a 41-yard touchdown to Scott.

The Bruin receivers put up big numbers, led by Johnson’s 125 yards on five catches, two of them going for touchdowns, while two of Scott’s three catches went for scores as he totaled 113 yards in the air. Running back Steven Manfro had 105 yards of his own with his seven catches.

As for the defense, although they were a bit depleted by injuries, linemen Datone Jones and Donovan Carter provided some highlights as they accounted for two sacks each while defensive back Sheldon Price, who has had problems in the secondary as he has gotten burnt numerous times in his Bruin career, intercepted two passes, including one from Hundley.

All in all, it was a good day as the team definitely did good things, especially on offense, but the biggest decision, one that will determine UCLA’s direction in Mora’s first year at the helm, still needs to be made as a starting quarterback needs to be chosen.

Mora and his coaching staff, understandably, wants to be sure that whoever wins the job behind center this fall excels. Here’s how I, personally, see things:

If Mora’s focus is to put UCLA in a position to win now and have someone with experience lead the team, Brehaut will be the one behind center when the Bruins face Rice in Houston, TX on August 30.

If, however, Mora wants to build for the future and have someone who will be in a position to lead the team for three or four years, it will be Hundley who will begin to gain valuable experience by calling signals at Rice.

Judging from Saturday’s scrimmage, Brehaut has done the best job among the quarterbacks, but the dilemma is this:

If Brehaut is the man behind center as a senior this fall and Hundley takes over in 2013, the redshirt freshman will be taking over with much less experience that if he were the starter now; that’s the rub that Mora and offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone must deal with going forward.

Kevin Prince? He’s an extremely tough young man and a great competitor who has gone through so much adversity with injuries and such, but the fact remains that he just doesn’t have the arm strength to be effective to the point where the Bruins can win consistently. In my book, the senior is clearly the third string guy.

That’s the situation in Westwood as spring ball ends; it’s up to the players now – especially Brehaut, Hundley and Prince – to continue to prepare and work HARD to change things, to get UCLA back to where they were in the 80s’ and 90’s, when they were highly ranked, going to Rose Bowls, and beating USC on a regular basis.

When it comes down to it, that’s all that Bruin Nation wants.