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UCLA Football: Bruins Must Fix Mental Errors

UCLA played solid in their win over Arizona State, but there are still plenty of areas that need shoring up. Both Ryan Rosenblatt and gbruin of Bruins Nation along with Punting Is Winning further discuss the situation.

By Avinash Kunnath
Rick Scuteri-US PRESSWIRE

What are the aspects of the victory that most concerned you going forward, and why?

Ryan Rosenblatt, Bruins Nation: As has been the case for most of the year, the brain cramps are really hurting this team. Whether it is trying to field a punt over your head and fumbling it, running the wrong route or having seven penalties for 77 yards, there are a lot of mental things that UCLA has to sort out.

gbruin, Bruins Nation: My biggest concern was our difficulty stopping the run. The Bruins, especially the front 7, have been pretty good at run defense this season, but ASU was able to exploit some things against our D line and run effectively. This opened up their passing game which isn't typically their best weapon and that really kept our D off balance. That allowed ASU to put up a lot of points and put pressure on the Bruins offense to match scores all day long, when they could have put the Sun Devils away much sooner with a couple defensive stops in the second half.

Punting Is Winning: UCLA needs to find a punt returner and they need to find one pronto. Steven Manfro has been catching punts like he is playing soccer, coupled that with the fact that Arizona likes to punt utilizing the rugby style of kicking, it just smells like disaster for my UCLA special team this weekend.

Andrew Abbott has been a sure catcher of punts in the past and even though he is a valuable commodity on defense, it would be beneficial for the UCLA to put him in punt returner role with his sole purpose being to catch the darn thing.


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