Maybe it's Tom Bradley's influence, maybe it's just another year of experience. It's very likely those and other things that have the Bruins feeling better prepared as the season starts.
Throughout the course of training camp, UCLA Coach Jim Mora spoke about making his team uncomfortable. The weather and change of scenery were the most obvious signs of that during training camp, but it was more than just that.
It was about preparing the team to expect the unexpected. Chris Foster of the LA Times discusses this in depth.
Foster writes about the Bruins has a tough time dealing with the unexpected last year and he points to Virginia and Utah who both brought quarterbacks off the bench who gave the team fits.