Jim Mora playing head games with Josh Rosen

UCLA opens its season in two and a half weeks and still has not named a starting quarterback. It’s been widely believed that highly-touted true freshman Josh Rosen would get the job, but either last year’s backup Jerry Neuheisel is giving him a run for his money, or head coach Jim Mora is really making sure Rosen earns the gig. It seems like the latter is more of the case.

Mora apparently was riding Rosen pretty hard at practice on Wednesday, taunting with him of chants about why he has not been named the starter yet.

“You’re not at … Bellflower St. John Bosco,” Mora screamed at Rosen, according to the LA Times’ Chris Foster. “That’s why you have not been named the starter.”

St. John Bosco is where Rosen played high school football. He led the team to a 12-2 record last year and 16-0 season the year before, resulting in his school earning a No. 1 ranking in the country.

Here are some of the other taunts used by Mora, per Foster:

-“You can’t hit an open receiver down field with no defense.”

–“The ‘Anointed One.’”

–“Go back to Bosco and beat some more [bad] teams.”

Was Rosen playing so poorly that he deserved the criticism? Or is Mora just trying to ride Rosen to bring the best out of him? It seems like he’s just playing head games with the freshman, otherwise he wouldn’t bring up the question everyone’s been asking about why he hasn’t been named the starter yet.

We still expect to see Rosen under center on Sept. 5 against Virginia.