Olson's Career is Over

So, the reports are that Ben Olson is out for 8 weeks with a re-broken right foot. But believe me... that's it for Ben. He won't return. It's been a tumultuous career for the big southpaw but injuries and inconsistency were the major themes of his college days. Ultimately, this is the final punctuation mark for the Dorrell era as Karl's biggest recruit ended up making virtually no impact for the Bruins.

This is the exact same injury that put Ben in crutches back in April. He rested for almost 3 months before getting back out to practice. You have to figure it will take him at least that long this time around. That puts him back in practice in November, and with the broken foot he won't be able to stay in shape and it will take him a while to get back into playing form. That leaves him with almost no games left. If Craft or Forcier (or anyone for that matter) is even remotely productive while Olson is gone, the coaching staff won't put Ben back in there. So believe me, this is it for Ben.

If you count up all the games where Ben Olson hasn't played since high school, the number is shocking. Olson graduated from Thousand Oaks high school in 2002. He red shirted his first season at BYU, so that's 12 games there. His two year Mormon mission adds in another 24 games. In his first season at UCLA, he fractured a thumb and was sidelined early. Drew Olson took over and had a fantastic season with Ben only played in garbage time for two games, so he sat out 10. In 2006, he started the first five games but suffered a knee injury against Arizona that cost him the remaining 7 games. Last year, Olson was only available to play in 6 games. That's a total of 59 games since 2002 where Ben hasn't played. That doesn't even count the games he'll miss this year, which will likely be all of them.

You got to feel bad for Ben, but it's almost better that it happened this way. UCLA needs to move on and the last vestiges of the old regime are now finally gone. This will be a building year for the future of Bruin football and the sooner the next quarterback can get some snaps and experience the better.