What Brian Price Knows
Brian Price admitted that UCLA is effectively going into its Saturday matchup with San Diego State completely blind, with all SDSU practices closed and a brand new coaching staff.
What he knows is little, but he expects the Aztecs to closely resemble head coach Brady Hoke's smashmouth ideals.
"I know they have a tough head coach, and I know he's preaching toughness. I know they're going to try and come out with some smash-mouth football. We're not underestimating them; we're taking them for what they are."
The Bruins have pored over various game tapes, even old film from new SDSU coordinators Al Borges and Rocky Long's days at UCLA.
"Last year it was like this against Washington State," said Price, referring to second-year Cougars head coach Paul Wuff. "We looked all over for film. It's the same now. Everybody's used to it. And we have no school, so we can watch a lot more film."
Inasmuch as the oddsmakers have listed ucla as about a 21 point favorite, apparently the experts don't believe it is much of a disadvantage that ucla does not have San Diego State football film. They also probably believe that ucla's personnel superiority trumps everything else.
But the way these fires are going it may be less than 50-50 that the teams even suit up on Saturday.
Hopefully by tomorrow we will have more than 50% containment of the fire. The air quality is a big concern.
They will double or triple team Price early to get him out of the game. They may be willing to give up some personal foul penalties to nullify his effectiveness. On defense, they will blitz, blitz, and keep on blitzing. They know we don't have our best blocking back in the game, so they will throw everything at our small, inexperienced RBs. Coach Norm would be wise to instill a 2-back set, with Theriot and/or Moline to help protect Prince. This game will be torrid, but we should win on the over-all quality of our players. The 4th quarter will more than likely tell the tale.