Daily briefing: On UCLA's physicality, being in a reflective mood and Randy Edsall

Ivan Maisel’s “Daily Briefing” for On3:

UCLA won’t be bullied anymore

The “Sissy Blue” T-shirt that UCLA football is showing on its Twitter feed is so funny it makes this Stanford grad want to wear it. Bravo to the Bruins for good-natured one-upmanship after LSU coach Ed Orgeron teased a smack-talking UCLA fan for “wearing that sissy blue shirt” before the game Saturday night. Yeah, it kind of backfired on Orgeron, especially after UCLA won the physical battle on both sides of the line. That’s a huge signal that Chip Kelly has created a Bruins team the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the days of Hall of Fame tackle Jonathan Ogden. You may be tempted to write off the entire Pac-12 North after Week One, but the two schools in Los Angeles provide hope for a conference that needs it.

A reflective Greg Schiano

In the first two questions that Rutgers coach Greg Schiano took in his news conference Monday, he covered the breadth of a long head coaching career. The first question regarded touted quarterback Gavin Wimsatt, who won a game for Owensboro (Ky.) High on Friday night and enrolled at Rutgers on Monday. “College sports is changing,” Schiano said. “You need to adapt. We’re doing our best to do that.” The second question asked for his memory of September 11, 2001. Schiano was two games into his head-coaching career. “We had two players whose moms were supposed to be in the towers that day. Thank God they weren’t,” Schiano said. “. . . From our practice field, you could see the smoke on the horizon.”

Randy Edsall’s return not a hit

Randy Edsall’s career at UConn is the flip side of Mack Brown’s renaissance at North Carolina. That may say more about the comparative resources in Chapel Hill and Bristol than it does about Edsall. Brown returned to a Tar Heels program swimming in money; Edsall returned to a Huskies program swimming in red ink and being all but relegated out of the American. But it’s also true that UConn twice tried to recapture the magic of a coach who had been successful in the northeast. Paul Pasqualoni replaced Edsall in 2011 and won 10 games in three seasons. Edsall returned in 2017 and has gone 6-32. UConn needs fresh energy, which is the last thing Edsall brought upon his return, and even that might not be enough.