By Robert Kuwada
BruinReportOnline.com
November 1, 2010
All along, 2011 was supposed to be the year.
That is when the UCLA Bruins would have a quarterback with a veteran presence and savvy, when the four and five-star recruits that head coach Rick Neuheisel has been able to sign would have matured physically and mentally into college football players.
Of course, no one ever wants to say, 'Wait Until Next Year,' on the first day of the season.
But that is what the Bruins were pointing toward.
Next year.
Now, though, Neuheisel and UCLA might as well add a year or two to their rebuilding timetable and the reasons for that go well beyond a slew of injuries and personnel issues that only became more acute in a 29-21 loss to Arizona on Saturday at the Rose Bowl.
The reality is the Bruins, now 3-5 and 1-4 in the Pac-10, have not lagged this far behind the rest of the conference since their first two seasons in the Pacific Coast Conference in 1928 and '29.
In its five Pac-10 games, UCLA has been outscored by a 187-83 margin, a minus-104 point differential. And the Bruins still have to play Oregon State, Arizona State and USC - all of which are scoring at least 29.9 points per game - as well as Washington.
UCLA was a minus-104 in 1999 when outscored, 241-137. But the Bruins were one year removed from back-to-back 10-win seasons and that was thought of more as an aberration than a reason to panic.
Before that, the Bruins had not been outscored by a larger margin in their conference games since 1929 when they were outscored 160-14 (minus-146) and 1928 when outscored 129-19 (minus-110) in a 10-team PCC that included Idaho and Montana.
After the loss to the Wildcats, there were no definitive answers to what is crushing the Bruins week to week, just a promise from Neuheisel that the team and its coaching staff will continue to work at it, which must ring terribly hollow these days.
Heard it after a loss to Stanford. Heard it after a loss at Cal. Heard it after a loss at Oregon.
And the fact is, the Bruins were well behind the Wildcats despite the final score. Arizona out-gained the Bruins by a 583-299 margin, had 32 first downs to just 15 for UCLA.
"I truly believe that we are going to get this done," Neuheisel said. "If I didn
