Three Keys to UCLA’s Clash With Colorado

Nov 2, 2013; Pasadena, CA, USA; UCLA Bruins receiver Shaquelle Evans (1) carries the ball on a 36-yard reception in the fourth quarter against the Colorado Buffaloes at Rose Bowl. UCLA defeated Colorado 45-23. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Coming off a victory last weekend that finally broke the Strawberry Canyon Curse, UCLA looks poised to carry some momentum and positive signs into its upcoming clash with Colorado tomorrow in Boulder. Go Joe Bruin looks at three keys to Bruin victory on Saturday:

1. Win the trenches, win the game

This is a simple concept that I have discussed in detail previously, so I won’t be getting too in-depth here. Last week’s performance in Berkeley was UCLA’s most complete combination of line performances, both offensive and defensive, of the season and resulted in an offense that was able to move the ball efficiently and a defense that stunningly blanketed the Cal offense but for a glut of touchdowns conceded on the back of turnovers. Without UCLA’s offense committing those turnovers, the Bruins would have been on their way to another Arizona State-style blowout on the road as they largely shut down Cal’s running game and got consistent pressure on Jared Goff.

Three crucial factors helped the Bruins look dominant on the lines for the first time all season: 1) Conor McDermott looked like a rock at left tackle and solidified Brett Hundley‘s blind side, which lifted the offensive line as a whole; 2) Tak McKinley was dynamite rushing the passer and his use as an edge rusher allowed Owa Odighizuwa to move inside and bolster UCLA’s defensive line both inside and out; 3) Cal doesn’t have very good offensive or defensive lines, which helped the Bruins look much better by comparison.

Against a similarly deficient opponent in the trenches in Colorado, UCLA needs to further the progress it made on the offensive and defensive lines last week. The Bruins need their respective fronts to be clicking on all cylinders going into the season-defining stretch run that follows the Colorado game of Arizona, Washington, USC, and Stanford.

2. Protect the football

Once again, football is a complicated game that can be distilled into exceedingly simple concepts. Block for your quarterback and running backs, stop the other team’s quarterback and running backs, and hold onto the football and you’ll win the vast majority of your games. I feel like this is probably a quote that’s plastered on a wall somewhere inside Stanford’s practice facility.

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UCLA has seen the yin-and-yang of turnovers and their value already this season. In a mostly even game statistically in Tempe a month ago, UCLA eviscerated Arizona State largely because the Bruins posted a +4 turnover margin on the Sun Devils and turned the resulting good field position and momentum from those turnovers into touchdowns that provided 24 points out of the 35-point margin of victory that night.

Conversely, in a game in which UCLA statistically dominated Cal, the Bruins had to battle to scrape out a victory by the hairs of their chinny-chin-chins last weekend because the Bruin offense gifted Cal with three turnovers. Those three turnovers resulted in three short-field touchdowns and 21 Cal points out of a total of 34 Cal points.

UCLA needs to, at the very least, break out of its offensive turnover funk this weekend in Boulder. Not just to win the present game, but in order to re-establish an ethos of protecting the football going into the aforementioned make-or-break part of the UCLA football season.

3. Stretch the defense vertically

One nitpicky issue I will bring up regarding the overall offensive scheme last week was the hesitancy to exploit the aggressive coverages that Cal’s mediocre secondary was consistently using in the second half. Cal’s corners were mostly playing tight against UCLA’s receivers on the line while creeping a safety into the box for run support, thus leaving only one deep safety over the top to exploit.

However, Hundley and offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone never tried to parlay the consistent use of wide receiver screens into any sort of double-move over the top or deep route, like the one we saw against Texas after the Longhorns had been sucked into sitting on the short stuff. A healthy portion of UCLA’s struggles to move the football in the second half can be attributed to the fact that UCLA never went to the counter-punch when Cal began to sit on the short stuff in the same way Texas did.

While it’s true that the UCLA receiving corps isn’t necessarily comprised of burners, the Bruins still need to take shots down the field, especially when the defense is practically begging them to, in order to loosen up the opponent’s coverages and create more breathing room in the short and intermediate areas in which the UCLA passing game is at its best.