McNown’s Too Fast for UCLA

It’s supposed to work like “Let’s Make a Deal.”

Cade McNown takes the snap from center and drops back. Behind Door No. 1, there’s Jim McElroy, streaking down the field. Door No. 2 hides Derek Ayers, running a slant pattern. Door No. 3? It’s Jamal Clark, hooking about six yards behind a blitzing linebacker.

From snap to choice of doors is supposed to take 2.7 seconds, and when everything goes right, the clock seems to creep along and the tableau downfield takes on an almost surreal quality of slow motion.

Too often, however, McNown is seeing things at fast-forward.

“He’s a hyper guy. He’s a Type A, like ol’ Coach Toledo,” UCLA Coach Bob Toledo said Monday. “He’s a 100-mph guy, and he’s just got to slow it down and let things develop. He wants everything too fast.

“He goes through the progression b-r-r-r-r-i-n-g, and then takes off. He needs to slow down.”

When McNown slows down, the offense speeds up. When he’s too fast, it can still run like a Honda racing engine in an Indy car for a while, but then it throws a rod and, with a puff of smoke, UCLA grinds to a stop.

Or lurches to one.

Or never starts at all.

McNown has thrown nine interceptions and only four touchdown passes in his last five games. In two of them, there were no touchdown passes, but still there were interceptions.

In a 38-29 victory over California on Saturday, McNown threw a touchdown pass and two interceptions, one of which earned him a severe scolding from Toledo and offensive coordinator Al Borges.

And from McNown himself.

“They didn’t have to say a word,” he said.

He had the Bruins on the six-yard line, with a running play called, when he decided to check-off at the line of scrimmage and pass to Ayers.

On first down.

Against Kevin Devine, Cal’s best defensive back.

With a fade route that UCLA never runs, even in practice.

“I would have given anything to have that one back,” McNown said. “The matchup wasn’t right, conditions weren’t right. It wasn’t a necessary throw. I came off the field really upset about that one. It was a dumb, bad pass.”

He has dropped to near the bottom in the Pacific 10 Conference quarterback-efficiency ratings, which emphasize touchdown passes and interceptions. He’s eighth this week. A week ago, he was at the bottom, and so was his confidence.

So much so, that he met with Borges to bare his soul.

“It’s really tough to talk about, but let’s just say I came out of the meeting feeling a lot better,” McNown said.

Said Borges, “I don’t put too much stock in [the efficiency ratings]. If he was a junior or a senior, I would be more concerned, but there are a lot of things that go into playing quarterback that aren’t in the statistics.”

Still, there are a lot of things that are.

McNown has completed 53.8% of his 195 passes for 1,477 yards in an offense that emphasizes ball-control, short-range, high-percentage passes.

He, Borges and Toledo all say they want 60%.

And it’s not as though UCLA is filling the air with footballs. In January, when Toledo was hired, the talk was of throwing the football for 60 minutes. But the Bruins are averaging only 4.5 more passes than they did a year ago, and completing 2.1 more for 29 more yards.

“Yeah, and we were really run-oriented last year,” Toledo said. “But we’re not [throwing] as well as I’d like. Why throw the ball if you’re running the ball better and put yourself behind the eight ball?

“That’s the thing that’s got me bothered. It’s a ball-control passing attack, and you’re supposed to be able to drop back and throw that five-yard pass on first down. We’re not doing that right now.”

Instead, the Bruins are running on first down because first-down passing was not working.

Borges said one of the reasons is that UCLA doesn’t want to put too much pressure on McNown. But by taking pressure off McNown, UCLA might have created the irony of ironies: using the West Coast offense when the most important person in it isn’t the quarterback, but rather tailback Skip Hicks.

“Yeah, but remember when the 49ers were running it so well?” Toledo said. “They had a 1,000-yard runner who caught 50 passes.”

But Hicks is not Roger Craig.

And McNown is not Joe Montana, nor his idol, Steve Young.

He’s a young quarterback, one still in the making, one able to improvise and throw on the run.

Toledo wants him to stand still and throw.

“We haven’t really gotten to some of the things we can do because we’re moving the pocket so much,” he said. “We’re not five-step dropping and throwing as much as I’d like. We’re moving more than dropping back and throwing. I’d like him to get better at five-step dropping and throwing.”

The idea is to get him to set up, see the field in front of him at any speed and pick out an open receiver and complete a pass to him, behind whatever door.

The receivers are there.

“He’s just not hitting some guys right now,” Toledo said. “There’s guys open and he’s not comfortable yet at staying in there and throwing the ball. We’ve got four games left and we’re going to continue to work on that.”

In their favor is knowledge that the most difficult part of the schedule is behind them. Ahead are home games against Stanford, Washington State and USC, and a road game against Arizona.

“He’s getting better, but he’s not the finished product yet,” Toledo said. “He’s still a sophomore and sometimes he plays just like a sophomore.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Passing Marks

Game-by-game look at UCLA quarterback Cade McNown

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Date, Opponent (Result) Att Comp Int Yds TD Sept. 7, Tennessee (L, 35-20) 24 16 0 230 1 Sept. 14, Northeast Louisiana (W, 44-0) 20 13 0 164 0 Sept. 28, Michigan (L, 38-9) 27 8 3 39 0 Oct. 5, Oregon ((W, 41-15) 24 13 2 158 1 Oct. 12, Arizona State (L, 42-34) 41 22 1 395 3 Oct. 19, Washington (L, 42-21) 31 17 1 218 0 Oct. 26, California (W, 38-29) 28 16 2 273 1 Totals 195 105 9 1,477 6

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