Jim Mora on keeping it close

[BeachBumDeac]

"We didn't come up here to play them close," Mora said. "We didn't come up here to give it the old college try. We came up here to win the game and we didn't get it done and it's disappointing. I told the guys we played hard but playing hard is not enough."

There might have been a time when UCLA football would have been happy staying with Oregon for three quarters, but that was before Mora took over. Moral victories are for losers and Mora is tired of seeing UCLA lose these kinds of games.

Since 1998, UCLA is 1-24 against teams that finished the season in the top 10 of the Associated Press poll, with the lone victory coming against USC in 2006, when the Bruins kept the Trojans out of the BCS National Championship with a 13-9 upset.

"We're close but it doesn't matter," Mora said. "We're not after being close. Heck with being close. Losers can be close. We want to get it. We want to win those games. The coulda, the woulda, the shoulda -- all that crap, we don't want that. I'm tired of that. It's time for UCLA to turn the freaking page and be something different and win those games. That's what it's time to be."

Would love to hear something similar from our coaches..

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/coll...im-mora-not-satisfied-being-close-loss-oregon

 

[BacktoBack]

I agree completely with what he is saying. However, it's unrealistic to think a team will go from losing all the time to winning every close game. There is a maturation process a team goes through to "learn" to win. IMHO getting close and having that anxious/gut wrenching feeling late in a game is the first step. With time and "practice" in those anxious moments a team will start winning eventually if they are well coached. Almost no team wins all the close games.

 

[deacs1995]

yeah but most teams win at least some of the close ones.

 

[DEACS76]

This team doesn't know how to do it. the last example was unc in '12. The oppotunity was there. The team took advantage of it. Against ULM, we were 98% successful, in that we had a chance to win and we didn't do it. It often comes down to players doing the little things. An example is the player who held KJ on the second to last play. He allowed Duke to possibly end the game with the hold/block. In close games it comes down the 2 or 3 guys doing something like that to make a difference. When the young Deacs learn these things, we'll be more successful. I hope they're learning about it in the film room today.