Bill Roth, who comes to UCLA for his first year as the 'Voice of the Bruins' after spending the past 27 seasons as the lead play-by-play broadcaster for Virginia Tech's football and men's basketball teams, will be doing a monthly column exclusively for uclabruins.com. Roth is an 11-time winner of the Virginia Sportscaster of the Year award, as voted on by the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association, and is a member of both the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame & Syracuse University's WAER Hall of Fame.
The Roth Report: Vol. 2 (Oct., 2015)
With a bye week and a break in the action before UCLA returns to the field next Thursday night at Stanford, this as good a time as any to both analyze and reflect upon what we've seen over the first five games this football season.
It's been an early-season full of injuries, player development and late-game drama. And that kind of fourth quarter excitement – and anxiety – is likely to continue for the rest of the year when you consider the rankings of our remaining Pac-12 South opponents.
Entering the Stanford game, the Bruins are 4-1 and ranked in the Top 20 in spite of a tough loss to Arizona State; one in which they never gave up, battled back and ultimately gave themselves a shot at victory in the closing minutes.
So what have we learned?
For starters, watching quarterback Josh Rosen over the first five games of his college career has been fascinating.
Big-league arm? Check.
Incredibly cerebral? Yup.
And a freshman? Of course.
You can't help but be impressed and excited about Josh's debut and thrilled about his potential, but more on that later with QB Coach Taylor Mazzone.
What Rosen did against Virginia, UNLV and Arizona is pretty remarkable. And while taking some lumps early against BYU and Arizona State, his ability to lead, make big plays when the team was trailing and still make clutch throws down the stretch was fully on display.
“I think he's better than I thought he'd be,” former Bruin quarterback and my partner in the broadcast booth Matt Stevens told me. “He's a guy who can put a team on his back. You don't see that often. They've taken the baby gloves off with him. He's special.”
The Rosen era is underway and, like many of his teammates, he will most certainly get better and better as the season progresses.
Secondly, there's not a defense in college football that could lose players the caliber of Eddie Vanderdoes, Myles Jack and Fabian Moreau and not be greatly impacted. The good news? UCLA has a deep roster, and there have been some players who, much to the satisfaction of their position coaches, have really stepped up. Notable amongst that group is Isaako Savaiinaea's emergence as a rising star at linebacker who leads the team in tackles – and if you've been watching closely – bone-jarring hits. In all, Savaiinaea has a team-high 26 tackles, including 20 solos, heading into the Stanford game.
As for nose guard Kenny Clark, he's having an all-conference season. An amazing season thus far. Watch the guy closely take on double-teams and fly around out there. You don't often describe 300-pounders 'flying around.' Pretty special player.
With other key absences on defense that have included cornerback Marcus Rios and linebacker Jayon Brown, it's been a bend-but-not-break squad that has made some key red zone stops and forced field goal attempts where a touchdown would have been detrimental to the cause.
Clearly, this is a different defense than we had expected personnel-wise, but – and this is a recurring theme – it's one that in spite of key injuries will improve as the season progresses, just with some different names growing into new roles.
Heading into the middle part of the season, the Bruins admittedly have a different look due to injury than the team that broke camp in San Bernardino. “But what you have to love about this team is how it fights,” said former Bruin quarterback and our sideline partner on the broadcast Wayne Cook. “Not every team is like that. Look at how they fight. Look at how the younger guys have emerged. That's what you like in any team.”
What is it like coaching Josh Rosen?
That's the question we posed to UCLA quarterback Coach Taylor Mazzone on this past week's Bruin Insider radio show.
“It's been exciting since day-one,” Mazzone told us. “As a coach you always love having that raw talent when it walks through the door. He has the ability to throw the football. Mentally, he's capable of maintaining all the information you give him”
“Each day is a day we can build for the future, and I'm really pleased about where we are right now. I'm excited to see how he handles [Stanford's defense].”
More telling was the way Rosen reacted in the fourth quarter of the Arizona State game.
“Even though we left the stadium unhappy, he was like “Coach, let's do it! Let's sling the ball around. Let's push the ball down field,' Mazzone said.
“There's a light that came on that said “I don't have to rely on Paul (Perkins) every down. I can do this. I can make things happen.”
Even in a defeat, there was a late-game positive for the Bruins and their quarterback.
As for Mazzone, coaching a guy like Rosen every day has its perks.
“Every quarterback coach wants a guy who's 6-4, 210 and can make every throw on the field,” Taylor said. “He's shown that he's a winner.”
“Having three years with Brett Hundley, that was a great experience for me too. Brett and now Josh? I have the best job in America pretty much right here.”
Remember, you can join us in person each Tuesday from 7-8 p.m. for Bruin Insider at the Wolfgang Puck Express inside the Ackerman Student Union on UCLA's campus.
Special Hall of Fame Night
What an honor it was to attend the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, hear from the eight new inductees and visit with their families.
Annett Davis (Volleyball), Danny Farmer (Football/Volleyball), Billy Martin (Tennis), Paul Nihipali (Volleyball), Jan Palchikoff (Rowing/Swimming), Janice Parks (Softball), Eric Valent (Baseball) and Richard Washington (Basketball) are the “Great Eight” of 2015, bringing membership in the Hall to just north of 250.
Each of the new inductees told stories, reflected on his or her past, elicited plenty of laughs and, of course, a few tears.
UCLA legend and Olympian Jan Palchikoff gave an extremely interesting speech that really stood out to me. A pioneer of both her sport and women's athletics in general, Jan was a member of UCLA's rowing program when it was a club sport, not a varsity program.
“I come from a family of activists,” Jan joked with the crowd at Covel Commons on the UCLA campus. “So when the men's rowing coach locked the women's team out of the boat house, we went to work.”
Boy did they ever. From that moment moving forward, the fight for women's rowing and women's athletics was on! And in the end, the ultimate winners were generations of athletes to come on this campus and around the nation.
PAST EDITIONS
September, 2015