Josh Rosen will be QB for UCLA. He's a true frosh, but Rated #1 in the country. Biggins has said he's the best QB he's seen come out of SoCal in 10+years. He's already enrolled (like Browning).He didn't even have a 2 game slide this year ... so thinking he'll have a 3 game slide next year is probably wishful thinking.
That being said, those thinking that SC is a runaway winner for the conference are FS given the losses that they have on the Front 7 as well as replacing most of their WR and RB production for this year.
My guess is that Seven will lose at least 2 games out of this bunch: Stanford, @ASU, @Notre Dame, @Oregon, UCLA.
UCLA is the one team that nobody is talking about because of Hundley leaving. But if they can find a way to get a graduate QB transfer in the fold (i.e. Braxton Miller), they have 18 returning starters. Even if they have to turn everything over to Slick's kid or even a true frosh, there will be a lot of support surrounding an average starter at QB. By the time UCLA plays USC, whoever it is playing QB for UCLA will have plenty of experience.
They return 18 starters, miss Ore/UW, and have their weakest non-Conf schedule in years. So how quickly Rosen acclimates will be the difference between a Sun Bowl type year or a Rose Bowl type year
I'm optimistic, but admittedly the history on true Frosh succeeding is thin at best.
I like UCLA's team a lot, but I have a couple issues. QB is the obvious one. The other is the defense. For the talent at hand, Mora's defenses have sucked. There was a stretch mid season where your defense was a total dreckfest. What changes are being made on that side of the ball? Something isn't working. After three seasons, I think what you have seen on that side, is how it is always going to be.
If your defense played at a higher level, you might survive having a freshman QB. I don't think Mora and Ulbrich are capable of making that happen.