What Is Going On With UCLA Football?

That seems to be the question right now, what is going on with UCLA football? After a hapless loss to the under-appreciated #24 Utah Utes, the Bruins lost 42-20 to the #12 Oregon Ducks in a rout at the Rose Bowl. The score does not indicate how bad things were for UCLA. Before the game entered the 4th quarter, Oregon was firmly in control with a 35-10 lead. The Bruins garnered up some strength to score three times in the fourth after the Ducks had all but locked down the win, but there were other factors at work here as the Bruins slowly imploded into themselves and a chance at the first ever College Football Playoffs vanished in front of 70,000+ fans.

Aside from the coaches yelling at each other, here is a list of problems that have and will continue to plague UCLA football as there does not seem to be any major shift to fix them:

• Penalties are still running rampant
• Disciplinary issues, Ex.: Eddie Vanderdoes throwing a punch, which the Pac-12 will review
• The kicking game, there is none
• Offensive line cannot protect Brett Hundley
• Hundley is not making quick decisions, forcing him to him
• The Bruins start drives strong but cannot finish/score
• Defensive line is getting no penetration on the opposing quarterback
• The defense is allowing 28.5 points per game (83rd in the nation)
• The defense is allowing 271.0 passing yards per game (8th in the Pac-12)
• Both offensive and defensive game plans seem predictable
• Coordinators cannot adjust to the game/opposing team

This is just from what can be seen from live national television. Who knows what else is going on behind the scenes, especially with things boiling over with coaches as defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich and head coach Jim Mora got into a shouting match (Ulbrich more so than Mora) which lead the DC to throw down his headphones, hand over his card to Mora and apparently told the HC to call the plays.

Now I am not sure what planet Ulbrich comes from where it is acceptable to scream at your boss and attempt to walk out when Ulbrich is clearly the one at fault (especially with his defense’s inability to stop anything), but it should not have gotten to that point. Mora, instead of screaming over him and playing the boss role, did something admirable as he chased after Ulbrich. Mora had put his hands on Ulbrich’s face to calm him, which is what  what a leader does (the calming down part, not so much the hands part). He does not let his guys go off the deep end for whatever reason, though Ulbrich later took responsibility saying:

Overall, this is Mora’s team and he needs to get things in order because right now, the season is in jeopardy. Whether it is having his coaches lose control or losing complete control of the game, he needs to fix UCLA football. There is no doubting that.