The Curse of Spaulding Field

On Thursday night, when the UCLA Bruins took the field for practice on Spaulding Field in Westwood, this is what their depth chart at quarterback looked like:

#1 Patrick Cowan
#2 Ben Olson
#3 ?
#4 ?
#5 ?

After about 10 minutes of practice, it looked like this

#1 ?
#2 ?
#3 ?

That's because in the span of around five minutes, Patrick Cowan tore his ACL and Ben Olson broke a bone in his foot. I have it on good authority that Cowan is done for the year and it's already out in the press that Olson is out for 2-3 months. Let's count the number of football games the rest of UCLA's QB's have played in Division I, shall we?

1...

2...

Whoops. Overcounted. It's 1.

It really sucks for Ben Olson, because obviously the dude is made of glass. His devastating injury to games completed ratio is now at 3 games to 5. I don't think the guy can stand at a urinal without at LEAST tweaking an ACL.

But you know what must be the shocking part about all this? That most diehard bruin fans (like me), aren't shocked at all. Nope, this is pretty much standard fare for us. So much so that my former roommate, upon hearing the news, started LAUGHING. Personally, I didn't think it was funny. I'm a pretty dedicated fan. I run a friggin' ucla blog. I didn't laugh, I had a heart palpitation.

So it all started here:



About 3 weeks after Ben Olson released the ball, an Arizona DT took his knee out. Olson never played again in the 06 season.

The next year, in UCLA's 3rd game, Olson (and the rest of the UCLA team) got whallopped and sat out a game with a concussion. Cowan, in his stead, took the reins and performed quite admirably in his first game. And tore his MCL.

Olson came in the next game against Oregon State. Much to the surprise of UCLA fans, Olson wasn't shot or shanked and was able to complete a game.
The confusion over why Olson wasn't injured in the Oregon State lingered for the entire week before the Notre Dame game.

Then, Olson tore his LCL. You're not an idiot: I didn't know it existed either. You should try watching the UCLA QB's practice for a week. Afterwards, you should be able to teach sports medicine at an accredited university.

So, Olson's out. Who comes in? Some white dude. Yeah, the other two guys are white, but they weren't named "McLeod Bethel-Thompson." Wow. Bethel-Thompson, a redshirt freshman, had quite a learning curve to overcome. It was so steep that, in fact, he didn't realize he was completing passes to the OTHER blue and gold team on the field until halfway through the 4th quarter. Bummer.

But it was all good, cuz Patrick Cowan came back next week against Cal! And whooped em! And survived the whole game against Washington State! Again, UCLA fans were perplexed. TWO entire games without a QB injury? What was going on???

Again, the confusion ended the next game. Cowan's knee got screwed up all over again against Arizona. Osaar Rashaan comes in and performs admirably. Not as a QB as much as a scrambler, but hey when you're at 4th string you'll take it. Osaar himself completed a game against Arizona State, but was pulled after the first half in the next game against Oregon in favor of...BEN OLSON. He's back! and he finished the second half! Time to party!

Yet, Cowan was named the starter against USC. And after UCLA got its ass kicked, he came out in the 3rd quarter. limping. This time, it was his knee. Hey! what a shocker! Dorrell gets fired. Olson is set to start for the BYU game.

But he tweaks his knee in practice. UCLA loses to BYU. Neuheisel gets hired, hoping not to get the same kind of bad luck that Karl Dorrell got in his last year as UCLA's head coach.

Well, so much for that.