UCLA Bruins in Search of Savior for Struggling Football Program

With the start of spring practice at UCLA, Jim Mora's race against time to put the Bruins back on the college football map is officially on.

Step 1: Find a competent quarterback.

Easier said than done, considering the Bruins haven't had one of those since 2005, when Drew Olson shared a backfield with Maurice Jones-Drew while leading Karl Dorrell's club to a 10-win season.

You'll have to rewind the clock back even further to find a signal-calling star in Westwood who so much as attracted the wandering eye of the NFL. That, of course, would be Cade McNown, whose pro career spanned all of four seasons between 1999 and 2002.

In the meantime, the Bruins have shuffled through quarterbacks like Ben Olson, Pat Cowan and Kevin Craft; head coaches like Dorrell and Rick Neuheisel; and six offensive coordinators in eight seasons—all in search of some semblance of success, particularly on offense.

That never-ending story has come to envelop Mora and quarterback guru Noel Mazzone, who hope to have found themselves a half-decent gunslinger by the time the Bruins suit up for their spring game at the Rose Bowl on May 5th.

Their choices? There's Kevin Prince, the senior who's won the job out of camp each of the past three seasons but has fallen out of favor each time amidst injuries and poor performance.

Granted, Prince's pauperism can just as easily be pegged as the result of the revolving door to the coaches' offices at the Acosta Center and the misuse and abuse that's come with it. 

There's Richard Brehaut, another senior who's been equally inconsistent and injury prone in relief of Prince, while subject to the very same tutorial whims and mistakes. This, despite cutting a figure that much more closely resembles that of your prototypical passer than does Prince.

There's Brett Hundley, the highly-touted prep star who sat out the 2011 season as a redshirt freshman but has long been pegged as the savior. To his credit, Hundley never had the opportunity to take a beating while stewarding Slick Rick's ill-fated "Pistol" offense, so he's not yet totally tainted.

And then there's TJ Millweard, the statuesque kid out of Fort Worth, Texas who left high school early to compete for the gig. He wound up at UCLA along with Mazzone, who most recently molded Brock Osweiler into a legitimate pro prospect at Arizona State.

It'll be Mazzone's job, more than that of the defensively-minded Mora, to sort out the Bruins' four-man quarterback conundrum this month.

He's somewhat responsible for turning Philip Rivers into a star during a short stint at North Carolina State, and has spent time in recent months coaching Rivers, Tim Tebow and Christian Ponder in L.A.

Fans of the Powder Blue and Gold can only hope Mazzone's magic touch will translate to Spaulding Field, where he'll be on a Li Shang-like quest to make a man out of the less-than-fearsome foursome that UCLA currently has stocked under center.

Nobody's expecting Cade McNown or even Drew Olson. Just someone who can move the chains and allow the program to focus on Step 2, whatever that may be.

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