Defense was on a morning mission

Brian Price said following Friday's practice that the first-team defense, especially the front seven, might have lost the battle against the offensive line in the first day of full pads.

But the junior defensive tackle promised they'd be back with a vengeance Saturday morning in the first installment of two-a-day workouts, and the All-America candidate remained true to his word.

Price, Jerzy Siewierski, Datone Jones, Korey Bosworth, Reggie Carter, Akeem Ayers and the rest of the defense made things tough on a developing offensive line, collapsing the pocket on quarterback Kevin Prince or forcing the redshirt freshman to throw on the run on several occasions.

And most of the passes Prince completed were screens to running backs or short underneath routes to receivers Taylor Embree, Terrence Austin and Gavin Ketchum.

In the last two 10-minute offensive series in the controlled scrimmage, Aaron Ware and Sean Westgate intercepted tipped passes and Brandon Sermons recovered a fumble.

And regardless of whether it was Christian Ramirez or Johnathan Franklin there wasn't much room for the tailbacks to run against the first-string unit.

"If you let teams run on you, you can't win," said Carter, a fifth-year senior linebacker who is on the preseason watch list for the Lott Trophy. "It's disrespect as a man if someone lines up in front of you and runs all over you. We have to stop the run first."

Despite the lack of offensive consistency in comparison to Friday, coach Rick Neuheisel said he needs the defensive unit to continue to keep the pressure on the offense in order for the Bruins to continue improvement in preparation for the season opener in three weeks against San Diego State at the Rose Bowl.

"it's all part of the ebs and flows of the offense and defense," Neuheisel said. "The defense has dominated around here for a long time, but in order for us to develop offensive consistency we can't have the defense start taking days off to give the offense a false confidence."