Who will protect Nico Iamaleava’s blind side this season for the UCLA Bruins? It very well might be tackle Courtland Ford, who is set to enter his sixth collegiate season with his third different school.
Ford began his college career as a USC Trojan and will now end it on the otherside of the rivalry with UCLA. While Ford is entering his first season as a Bruin but he’s far from alone, as he’ll likely be one of four new starters on the UCLA offensive line.
In his career, Ford has appeared in 35 career games, 20 of which came with USC and Ford appeared in another 15 over the past two seasons with Kentucky but he did not see much action last season, appearing in just two games after recovering from a hand injury.
New UCLA offensive coordinator Tino Sunseri came to Los Angeles this season and with him, he’s brought in some huge offensive lineman. Ford is absolutely part of that mix, standing at 6’6” and weighing 315 lbs, Ford will certainly give the Bruins some strength at the line of scrimmage.
Ford has taken starting reps at left tackle with UCLA this training camp but if he were to go down, the Bruins to hope to be in better shape than they were last year. Head coach DeShaun Foster cross-trained his offensive lineman at different positions this season after seeing his depth at tackle take hit-after-hit last season, leading to one of the worst rushing attacks in the nation.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: Meet the UCLA Bruins’ new left tackle, former USC Trojan Courtland Ford
Reporting by Dylan McNeill, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
