Rice-Eccles Stadium had a decidedly dull atmosphere before Saturday's UCLA-Utah game. Usually, moments before kickoff, most college football stadiums are rocking. The crowd is buzzing, the band is in full swing, and there's electricity in the air.

There was none of that on Saturday. The stadium was only sparsely filled by a late arriving crowd that seemed content to just watch the game instead of making noise. It reminded me of a polite but unenthusiastic golf gallery.

At the time, I thought to myself that it would probably be tough for the UCLA players to get fired up for the game. When you're about to play USC before 90,000 at the Rose Bowl, or before a sellout crowd at Notre Dame Stadium it's easy to get fired up. In fact, I would think it's almost automatic. It's a different story in an atmosphere like that at Utah on Saturday.

As I said on the Joe Grande Show on Sunday, there's a difference between being prepared for a game and being ready for a game. Being prepared (and from what I'm hearing it's dubious the Bruins were prepared for Utah) involves things like knowing the game plan, knowing your role, studying film, etc. Being ready means being fired up and motivated to play with as much energy as you can when the bell rings.

I can understand an NBA team coming out flat and not being ready to play a handful of times a year due to things like the grueling 82 game schedule, travel, etc. Not too many teams and players can play with maximum energy every night, even the great ones. Some exceptions were Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. Jordan would even play mind games with himself to get motivated when facing a dull atmosphere like the Bruins faced in Utah on Saturday.

I can't understand a college football team ever coming out flat, simply because they play ONLY 12 GAMES A YEAR!!! How can you not get geared up for a game when you have only twelve opportunities a year to showcase what you've busted your tails for over the other 353 days?

As I said earlier, it wasn't easy for the Bruins to motivate themselves to play in that dull atmosphere this past Saturday, but that's no excuse. If the players can't motivate themselves, it's up to the coaching staff to get them fired up, especially in college football. Again, I'm not saying it's easy. In fact, it's very difficult. But in my opinion, it is an essential part of the job.

That's one thing that I've noticed USC has been able to do very well during their recent dominant run. They'll be heavily favored over some team, especially at home, yet there won't be a let down. They don't come out flat, and they take care of business.

The Bruins were on the flip side of this last year, in my opinion, at Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish were significantly favored at home. They came out flat, while underdog UCLA was fired up and motivated properly for that game. It was extremely apparent early, and should have resulted in a Bruin victory. Why it didn't, of course, is another story for another time.

Since the final gun Saturday, I have heard and read many calls for Karl Dorrell to be fired. That kind of talk is way too premature ... for now. Fans and media people should be extremely careful when calling for someone's firing publicly. It better be a well thought out opinion and not simply a knee jerk reaction. All the calls for Dorrell to be fired since Saturday are based on heat-of-the-moment anger and emotion.

Fans and even people in the media often forget that there is a human side to this. When someone gets fired, it doesn't just hurt them. It hurts their wives and children. That being said, it is part of the business. Pro football, and even college football, is a multi-million dollar business. The financial differences between a winning season and a losing season can be gigantic.

Coaches and their families are well aware of the risks before they sign on. Still, out of respect for the coaches and their families, I am very careful not to call for someone's firing until it's, to borrow a legal term, beyond a reasonable doubt (Paul Hackett comes to mind).

It's too early to decide about Dorrell. Three or four more weeks of this, and that could be a different story. For me, it's not so much about wins and losses, but how a team is playing. Do they look prepared? Are they making mental errors? Are they playing together? How do they handle adversity? I, and most reasonable fans, can accept a defeat if it's obvious a team has played as well as it's capable of. It's one thing to get beaten by a better team. It's another for a team to beat itself.

We'll be watching the Bruins very closely in the coming weeks to make that determination.

Think I went too easy on Dorrell and the Bruins? Think I'm right on? Leave me a comment and tell me what you think.

Esteban Loaiza did the impossible on Tuesday. He made Dodger fans yearn for Brett Tomko.

In the opener of what they acknowledged was THE critical homestand of the season against the teams directly ahead of them in the standings, Loaiza allowed six runs, three home runs, and four walks in 3.1 painful innings against the Padres.

It was Loaiza's second start with the Dodgers after a very promising seven innings eight days ago against the Cubs. This one, however, was painful to watch from the start. In a three walk, two run first inning, Loaiza seemed to have zero confidence in his stuff. On every pitch, he was either trying to get people to chase pitches out of the zone, or he was trying to nick the outside corner. He wasn't challenging hitters at all.

Then in successive innings, he was just all over the place. When I'm covering a game, one way I try to gauge a pitcher is by watching the catcher's target. If the catcher doesn't have to move his target, the pitcher is hitting his spot. Well, with Loaiza on Tuesday night, Russell Martin's target would be one place, and then he'd often have to move it about a foot in whatever direction the pitch was thrown.

By the way, is this a good time to mention that the Dodgers are on the hook for Loaiza's services next year to the tune of seven million dollars?

NOW...

In the bottom of the second inning, the Dodgers trailed 4-0, but it was clear Loaiza had nothing and would not be in the game long. The Dodgers had runners at second and third with two out against Dodger-killer Jake Peavy and Nomar Garciaparra, the number eight hitter, coming up. Padres manager Bud Black walked Garciaparra intentionally to load the bases for the number nine slot.

Sitting next to me, Lee Klein pointed this out that he thought this was a mistake on Bud Black's part. Why tempt Little into pinch hitting for Loaiza? If you're a Padres fan at this point, you're begging the Dodgers to keep Loaiza in the game.

So I figured the Dodgers, especially with their expanded roster, would pinch hit for Loaiza. Loaiza was going to have a short stint anyway, and by using a pinch hitter you raise your chances of someone getting a hit. In this case, a single with the bases loaded would bring in two runs and make it 4-2 after just two innings.

The argument for keeping Loaiza in is a domino effect. By removing him after two innings, you force your bullpen to pitch seven innings, and put tons of pressure on Wednesday starter Derek Lowe to go deep into the game or else the bullpen will be fried.

Little kept Loaiza in the game. Fine. I didn't necessarily agree, but I didn't have a problem with it - even though Loaiza wound up allowing two more runs the following inning before they finally put him out of his misery.

HERE'S WHAT I DID HAVE A PROBLEM WITH.

D.J. Houlton relieved Loaiza and retired all four batters he faced.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Houlton's number nine spot came up with one out and the bases empty and ... he was pinch hit for by Delwyn Young!

I don't get it. With the bases loaded and a chance to get back into the game with one swing, they leave the pitcher in ... ostensibly to save the bullpen. But then later, with a long reliever pitching effectively, and hardly any offensive reward, you pinch hit for him then?????

If anyone can explain this, leave me a comment.

Shields had been one of the most dependable relievers in the Majors over the last several seasons, including the start of this one, as he had a 1.70 ERA in the first half of the season. Since the All-Star break, however, his ERA is 10.00. The last straw came Sunday when Shields allowed a game-winning grand slam to the Rangers Hank Blalock.

"I've never gone through anything like this in my life", Shields said of his current slump.

Inside the Big A before Monday's game (while I was outside broadcasting with Joe Grande), Shields was informed in a closed door meeting that Justin Speier would be taking over his set-up role for the time being.

The Angels first course of action in Shields road to recovery was today's simulated game. Mike Scioscia says Shields spent the first two-thirds of the workout experimenting with various mechanical things, but then he got into a rhythm, and the last nine pitches were "incredible", as Scioscia termed it. Scioscia feels that the result of the simulated game was that Shields is back in sync and doesn't have to worry about mechanics anymore, something we won't know for sure until he returns to live action.

Shields was pleased with the way it went as well. He said he "had a few things going on in my head", presumably mechanic-related, instead of just concentrating on the two basic things he normally does, keeping his balance on the rubber and throwing "through" the catcher's gloved target.

The beleaguered reliever felt so good after his workout that he said he was going to lobby Scioscia to appear in Wednesday afternoon's series finale against the A's. However, pitching coach Mike Butcher noted that Shields threw approximately 40 pitches in the simulated game, and that Shields would be available in an emergency role at best on Wednesday, despite his rubber arm. Whenever Shields returns, he won't immediately be reinserted into the set-up role. He'll have to earn the job back by pitching in middle relief situations.

You learn more about athletes when things aren't going well as opposed to when they are going well. During this slump, Shields has been extremely accessible and forthcoming about his struggles. The one exception was yesterday, when he declined to speak to the media (in the interest of full disclosure, I didn't witness this personally because I was outside broadcasting with Grande). Today, however, not only did he speak with us at length before the game, he did something I can't remember any athlete doing in all the years I've been doing this. He actually apologized for not talking to us yesterday ... three times.

He apologized when we first started talking to him. He apologized again when one of the writers walked up a few minutes later, and then apologized again after we spoke with him. Contrast that with how Ervin Santana has been dealing with the media lately. Since he started slumping, he began getting a little surly with the media hordes, and then abruptly stopped talking to us in English, instead utilizing a translator. I'm willing to cut Santana a little slack on this though, as he is much younger than Shields (24 years old compared to 32), and isn't fully confident speaking English with the media.

On to this weekend's college football openers. In general, I don't think you could glean too much from the debuts of our local heroes, although I felt I learned more about UCLA than USC. Ben Olson took a while to get in sync due to what Karl Dorrell later termed "nervous energy", but once he did he was superb. I was pleased with the depth that the Bruins displayed at wide receiver, something many observers of the program feel are long overdue. Kahlil Bell and Chris Markey were excellent, and defensively, I was particularly impressed with the play of Bruce Davis and Christian Taylor.

A word about Stanford. Mark my words, Jim Harbaugh will get that thing turned around. It might take a few years, but it will happen.

It was my first time (insert Grande joke here) in the new Stanford Stadium. They've brought the stadium much closer to the field, with a new capacity of 50,000, instead of 84,000-ish. There was hardly anyone there this Saturday (relatively speaking), but that place would be fantastic when full.

More than once during the weekend, I heard UCLA fans wishing that there could be a similar on-campus stadium for the Bruins in Westwood. I think that would be a great idea. I love the Rose Bowl, but if it's not sold out, the atmosphere seems to suffer as a result. My idea would be to have UCLA play all it's home games in this fictitious on-campus stadium, with the exception of hosting the USC game every two years.

It will never happen, of course. There's no place to put a stadium in Westwood, even on the grounds of the VA where Jackie Robinson Stadium is. And even if there was, the resulting traffic couldn't even be managed by FEMA.

Anyway, on the plane back we flew over the Coliseum as USC was facing Idaho. I didn't get back home until after the game was over, but as I was in the car, Lee Klein called me from the press box and filled me in on the Mario Danelo tribute they did, when they did not send a kicker out for the extra point out after USC's first touchdown.

As I said on the air Sunday, I thought it was an awesome tribute, and something they should do every year after the first USC touchdown of the first home game. They could even set it up with the opposing team's coach ahead of time, and getting him to agree to decline the resulting delay of game penalty.

The Dodgers are caught in somewhat of a no-man's land right now. They are not close enough in the standings to inspire a case of playoff fever, yet they are not far out enough to write off the season and start playing all kids all the time in order to gain more experience for their bright future.

Grady Little is obviously trying to win every day and win this year (although Joe McDonnell might disagree with me), yet at the same time he's trying to get as much playing time as possible for the Matt Kemps and James Loneys of the world.

Little said before tonight's game that the balancing act is "a line we have to walk. It's a daily activity" making up a line-up that satisfies both the organization's short term and long term objectives.

Earlier in the day the Dodgers announced plans to renovate the field level concourses at Dodger Stadium, while adding a trendy field level club down each baseline. The concourses, which currently seem too narrow, crowded and stuffy, will, according to the renderings I saw, be wider and more airy (that might be a Joe Grande word) with more concession stands. A few years ago there was a rumor that the Dodgers would move the press box one level up and replace it with a luxury club, but thankfully that was not included in this round of renovations.

Check out my postgame report on tonight's contest in our podcast section. It'll be posted approximately an hour after the game.