Defensive Coach Johnson Goes to Bears

With the start of spring football practice less than a week away, UCLA lost defensive line coach Don Johnson to the Chicago Bears on Wednesday.

“Lovie Smith and the Bears got a great one,” said Bruin Coach Karl Dorrell, who plans to replace Johnson before the first day of practice Tuesday. “Don has done some great things for us and our defense even before I arrived here at UCLA. He’s going to be sorely missed.”

Johnson, who was also recruiting coordinator last year, said the decision to leave Westwood was difficult. “The toughest thing is leaving my players, but I felt that at this time in my career this is an opportunity I needed to seize.”

Finding a replacement for Johnson is only the latest challenge for the Bruins, who are starting practice earlier than usual because of field renovations.

Coming off a 6-6 season that ended with an upset loss to Wyoming in the Las Vegas Bowl, UCLA will be without two-year starting quarterback Drew Olson, who suffered torn ligaments in his left knee against the Cowboys, and several other key players who have had off-season surgery.

The injured list includes: starting linebackers Spencer Havner (shoulder), Justin London (ankle) and Wesley Walker (knee), offensive lineman Robert Chai (knee), safety Chris Horton (foot) and linebacker Fred Holmes (groin).

“We’re going to go through this spring trying to find the [players] who can give us the quality depth to help us in 2005,” Dorrell said.

The most interesting position to watch will be quarterback, where Ben Olson, who enrolled in school last month after spending the previous two years on a Mormon mission following a redshirt season at Brigham Young, will compete with returnees David Koral, Pat Cowan and Brian Callahan.

“My expectations for [Ben Olson] are for him to come away with a solid foundation of our offense. That’s really the goal of every quarterback,” Dorrell said. “Like with David Koral too. He hasn’t had that many reps and he’ll get more now.... With all of the quarterbacks, none of them have had many reps, and Ben Olson hasn’t had any.”