UCLA is making a change at tailback for Saturday's contest which on the surface might seem odd, but in actuality makes a lot of sense.
Johnathan Franklin is a 5-foot-11, 195-pound redshirt freshman burner who has started eight games at tailback for the Bruins. Only problem is, he's fumbled the ball five times. So the Bruins are turning to 6-foot, 230-pound sophomore bruiser Derrick Coleman instead.
At first blush, you'd think they'd want to go with the speedy guy, given our lack of that quality on defense. But the Cougs have shown the ability to generate fumbles (although that's tapered off a lot the past three games), and when you combine that with the expected cold weather ... well, I can see why UCLA would want to try and make sure that it doesn't give WSU any possible way to stay in the game.
Besides, it's not like we've done great stopping big backs, either -- Notre Dame's Robert Hughes (5-11/234) went off for 131 yards on 24 carries, repeatedly dragging our smaller defenders for an extra two to four yards.