Competition Everywhere as Bruin Spring Session Opens

If UCLA is going to turn things around and have a winning football team in the fall, the Bruins need to have a productive spring football session, which starts today on the Westwood campus.

“We’re a year more established as a program,” said second-year Coach Karl Dorrell, whose Bruins lost their final five games last season and finished 6-7. “We will scrimmage a little more than we did last spring and we’ll test ourselves more to see where we are as a football program.”

Nearly everywhere Dorrell looks on the UCLA roster, there are questions, especially on defense, where the Bruins have only five starters returning.

Key defensive players lost include linemen Rodney Leisle and Mat and Dave Ball, linebacker Brandon Chillar and cornerback Matt Ware.

The Bruins will be looking for such players as junior linebackers Justin London and Spencer Havner and senior cornerback Ben Emanuel to assume key leadership roles on defense, which was a strong point last season.

“Spring practice is the starting point of where guys are going to be on the depth chart, but it’s not set in stone,” said Dorrell, who is eager to get a look at such junior college transfers as linemen Kyle Morgan and Justin Hickman. “There will be plenty of competition.”

In the secondary, UCLA will be without junior defensive back Nnamdi Ohaeri, who had off-season knee surgery.

That will help open up competition for sophomores Eric McNeal and Joe Garcia and freshmen Trey Brown and Dennis Keyes.

Offensively, UCLA’s line will be improved but still lacks depth. Starting center Mike McCloskey and tackle Steve Vieira have been cleared to practice but because both players had off-season surgery, they will be limited throughout the spring.

*

Dorrell suspended outside linebacker Xavier Burgess indefinitely for violating team rules and said he will be evaluated at the end of the semester.

“It wasn’t anything from an arrest or anything that deals with a law-breaking issue,” Dorrell said.

Last fall, Burgess was charged with five misdemeanor counts from an altercation with a parking-lot attendant and his trial is set for later this month.