Upon Further Review UCLA vs Utah: Blame Everyone For This Loss

Saturday was a tough night for Bruin fans as UCLA suffered its 1st loss of the season to the visiting Utah Utes at the Rose Bowl.

… Coordinators made decisions that put the Bruins in bad situations and the players lost a number of 1 on 1 battles …

For sure, we were all expecting a physical battle with the Utes, but no one saw the upset coming at home a week after Utah struggled and lost to Washington State and the Bruins seemingly got everything right in a dominating victory against Arizona State. However, UCLA’s reign as the flag bearer of the Pac-12 lasted only 48 hours (not even long enough to make it official), and the national label of “Pretender” was once again stamped across Joe Bruin’s forehead for another week.

In a game in which the good guys trailed throughout and by 10 a few minutes into the 4th quarter, there is plenty of blame to go around. The bulk of the blame from the assorted media outlets seem to be directed at UCLA Kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn. To be sure, he has never been a consistent kicker for the Bruins and his double misses Saturday didn’t disprove that assessment. However, its a shame that the talking heads don’t mention that both kicks would have been career longs for Fairbairn had he made either. The ugly part is that he had a mulligan that allowed him two chances to come though and he came up short on both (or I guess short and wide-right). After all that has happened in the past, this failure may very well ruin Fairbairn’s psyche for good, but the real failure is that the team put him in that position to fail in the first place.

The Bruins found themselves chasing the backside of plays too often on Saturday Night. Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports

Defensively, the Bruins unleashed the blitz and a much more aggressive style to mixed results. The Bruins blitzed more against Utah than they had in the previous 4 games combined (29 blitzes on 73 total plays). Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich sent Myles Jack (who spent most of the ASU game as a de facto nickel back) crashing into the line of scrimmage on a number of plays and Ulbrich also brought numerous safety and corner blitzes (which is a stark contrast to the control and contain game plan employed against Texas and ASU the last few weeks). The increased aggression worked to prefection against Utah QB Travis Wilson (holding the Utes to a trio of 3 and outs to start the game), but when Wilson was replaced by Oklahoma transfer QB Kendal Thompson, the Bruins schemed and blitzed themselves out of position on a gaggle of key plays. More importantly, in a game in which Utah ran the ball over 50 times for almost 4.5 yards per carry, the Bruins spent too many plays with insufficient personnel at the point of attack by either lining up in nickle and dime alignments or by getting caught blitzing away from Utah’s offensive attack. Once Thompson entered the game UCLA could never fully stop the Utah rushing attack; the Utes were able to make enough plays to grind out the victory in crunch time. Even after the Bruins took the lead late in the 4th quarter, the over aggressive game-plan took defenders out of position to make stops and allowed Utah the game winning field goal.

Nate Orchard beat Bruin blockers for multiple sacks on Saturday night. Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports

The offense took a huge step back in this game as well. Hundley and the UCLA offense could not have been hotter coming in to the game, but the physical Utah defense quickly slapped the swagger out of Bruins by holding them to 7 points in the 1st half and also negating those points by scoring a TD of their own.

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Although the Bruin running backs were effective for most of the game (

Paul Perkins

17 carries for 5.8 YPC;

Jordan James

11 carries for 4.5 YPC) and the offense was able to generate a couple fantastic big plays echoing the ASU performance, the UCLA offense lost the game with a staggering number of negative plays. 11 sacks and 5 running plays of no gain or negative yards killed the Bruins throughout the course of the game.

The sacks were a total team effort (see table below); after watching the replay I attributed 2 sacks to running backs failing to make pick up blocks, 4 and 1/2 were due to offensive line mistakes (either being beaten one on one or a failure to pick up a blitz) and 4 and 1/2 were due to Hundley holding on to the ball too long. These negative plays were a mixture of Utah physically beating a UCLA blocker, a UCLA player missing an assignment or read, and poor decisions by Hundley.

UCLA would not have had such a big hole to dig out of had it not been for three offensive sequences in particular. These three sequences (possibly the worst offensive sequences of the Jim Mora era) led directly to 13 Utah points, and allowed the Utes to keep the Bruins just out of reach for most of the game:

1. Of course the 1st quarter pick 6 by Hundley where he threw the ball over Perkins head (who was having trouble getting out of the backfield) and right into the arms of a Utah defender – 7 points
2. Late in the 2nd Quarter the Bruins drove the ball to their own 40 before imploding with 3 straight sacks. After punting Utah was able to run out the clock and add a field goal before the end of the half – 3 points
3. After scoring a TD to pull within 3 and then stopping the Utes, the Bruins were again sacked on 3 consecutive plays (the last one ended with Hundley going into the fetal position at the goal line). The Bruins were forced to punt and Utah had a short field to get a 6 point lead again – 3 points

… As bad as Saturday night went, the Bruins goals have not changed …

As you can see, there is more than enough blame to go around for this loss. Mora attributed the loss to a total team failure and he was right. The coordinators made some schematic and play calling decisions that put the Bruins in bad situations on both sides of the ball. The players also lost a number of 1 on 1 battles with a tough Utah team that made them pay physically. Luckily, as bad as Saturday night went, the Bruins goals have not changed.

They are still fighting to represent the South Division in the Pac-12 Championship Game; the only problem is that they now need Utah to lose another game before the end of the season (Utah has Oregon, USC, ASU, Stanford, Oregon State and Arizona still on the schedule). If the Bruins make the Pac-12 Championship and win, then they will have as good a shot as any to get selected for the College Football Playoff. There was a slim margin of error for the Bruins, and now they have used it up. If you believe they are fundamentally flawed, then you didn’t think they were running the table anyway. If you think these Bruins were destined for a a special season, you still may not be wrong.

Yet.