A Pessimist’s Take On The Season That Has Been And Will Be
Oct 11, 2014; Pasadena, CA, USA; UCLA Bruins receiver Alex Van Dyke reacts from the bench during the second quarter against the Oregon Ducks at Rose Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
At the midway point of the 2014 season, there is clearly not a lot to be happy about with regards to the performance of UCLA’s football team. In examining the problems that are besmirching a season that began with so much promise before a ball was even snapped, it’s easy to identify the main source of UCLA’s issues: the trenches.
A tried and true saying in football goes like this: “Win the lines of scrimmage, win the game.” To date, UCLA has been the antithesis of that saying. The offensive line has been a sieve in pass protection, allowing 25 sacks in 6 games and ranking dead last in the nation in tackles for loss allowed.
Conversely, the defense has only sacked the opposing quarterback 7 times (for a measly 30 yards lost) and ranks dead last in the conference in Havoc Rate, or the percentage of snaps on which the defense causes tackles for loss, sacks, forced fumbles, interceptions and pass breakups out of the total number of plays it faces. The Bruins can’t protect their own quarterback, but the other quarterback has total comfort in making plays against the UCLA defense. That’s simply not a winning equation in college football, especially in a conference as brutal as the Pac-12.
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Like any serious infection or disease, the rot from the trenches has spread and seeped into the performance of the team as a whole:
doesn’t trust his offensive line whatsoever, so he thoroughly lacks composure in the pocket, takes sacks that should never occur as a result, and kills drives with negative plays; UCLA consistently finds itself in untenable 3rd and long situations because of negative passes, runs, and penalties; the defensive backfield is exposed because it is forced to cover receivers for too long as a result of the lack of pressure the opposing quarterback feels in his own pocket; the linebacking corps is stretched thin from sideline to sideline because the linemen in front of them aren’t staying disciplined in their gaps and are conceding the edges against the run; and so on and so forth.
The deficiencies on the lines of scrimmage have not been helped in any way by the gaping schematic errors that UCLA stubbornly continues to employ despite the ample proof showing that the strategies in place just aren’t suited to the personnel in place. UCLA’s conservative, bend-and-break-often 4-2-5 defense has proven to be a disaster. As stated before, very little pressure is being put on opposing quarterbacks, which is a root cause for UCLA’s pass defense looking absolutely woeful. Additionally, opposing offenses are smartly targeting the “jumbo” outside linebacker being used as the edge rusher/4th down lineman, usually Deon Hollins, and using that player’s total lack of size against him in the run game, where UCLA is getting eaten alive by runs off tackle targeting Hollins or Aaron Wallace.
Similarly disastrous has been Noel Mazzone‘s persistence with calling an uncreative, predictable offense that relies on telegraphed runs up the middle, on which UCLA’s interior linemen are rarely creating holes, and long developing pass plays that require UCLA’s offensive line to do a job it’s ill-equipped to do, which is hold blocks and keep a clean pocket for 5-7 seconds.
We’re seeing the poor results of UCLA’s obvious personnel issues and schematic intransigence: a team that seems to be wildly talented is playing at a level far below its talent level. It’s a tale as old as time for UCLA football.
Quite frankly, this coaching staff has to show fans that it is, in fact, capable of inserting round pegs into round holes in such a way that the season can somehow be salvaged and the momentum of the program can be sustained rather than slowed down as seems to currently be the case. In light of the current issues previously detailed, though, this is one writer’s take on how the season is likely to unfold should the team’s current problems persist or become exacerbated:
Remaining Game Predictions
Cal: Who in his or her right mind would have expected before the season that UCLA and Cal would be coming into their head-to-head matchup with the same record? It has taken a combination of Cal wildly exceeding pre-season expectations and UCLA falling woefully short of its own pre-season expectations for the two teams to meet in the middle with their respective 4-2 (2-2 Pac-12) records coming into Saturday’s game.
Washington laid out a pretty clear blueprint for shutting down Cal’s, and indeed any other team’s, passing attack last Saturday: generate a lot of pressure on the quarterback with the front four, play two safeties over the top in Cover 2 to prevent big plays, and flood the intermediate passing zones to limit yards after the catch on short passes. If anything, such a blueprint sounds like the ideal to which Jeff Ulbrich is aspiring to in the way he’s set up the UCLA defense.
However, Ulbrich’s defense hasn’t shown anything resembling a consistent pass rush, especially from its defensive line, at any point this season and that is the crucial element to stopping an Air Raid attack. Against what is likely to be nonexistent UCLA pressure, Cal QB Jared Goff will find himself with much more time to throw than he ever had against Washington and that will mean plenty of points for Cal. If UCLA wants to win at Strawberry Canyon for the first time since 1998, Hundley and the UCLA offense will probably have to outscore Cal to do so.
Verdict: Possible win
Colorado: If UCLA can’t convincingly beat Colorado, then it might as well pack it in for the season. It’s the one remaining game that needs no real analysis. Anything short of double digit win will result in a UCLA fan apocalypse — Scout.com better have its servers ready or Bruin Report Online members might bring down the entire network in the event of a UCLA loss in Boulder — and DEFCON One in Westwood.
Verdict: Win
Arizona: Who can figure out this Arizona team? Is the real Arizona the one that controlled the trenches up in Autzen on the way to one of the most stunning upsets of the season? Or is the real Arizona the one that barely put away the likes of Nevada, UTSA, and Cal (needing a memorable Hail Mary to win the latter game)? UCLA will not beat the former Arizona team; it should beat the latter.
Verdict: Possible win
Washington: This is an awful matchup for UCLA. Washington has one of the three best pass-rushing defensive lines in the conference, along with Utah and Stanford. That spells serious trouble for a UCLA offensive line that consists of matadors. As for its offense, Washington hasn’t had an elite unit, but it does have a dangerous dual-threat quarterback in Cyler Miles, two reliable running backs who can move the chains in 5-7 yard chunks in Lavon Coleman and Dwayne Washington, and deep threats at receiver who will stretch the field in John Ross and Jaydon Mickens.
Essentially, Washington is a better, more talented version of Utah (minus the special teams aces). No one should expect the UCLA team that we’ve seen through six games to go up to one of the most hostile road environments in the conference and pull out a victory against a Washington team whose strengths seem to perfectly align with UCLA’s weaknesses.
Verdict: Loss
USC: Unlike the previous game up in Seattle, USC is actually a good matchup for UCLA. USC’s offense is conceptually predictable, its defense can be dominated at the point of attack, and, by this point in the season, it is likely to be facing depth issues that UCLA can exploit through its game plan. In fact, USC seems a lot like a less-deep version of UCLA.
Despite a discouraging season that has provided the first real adversity of the Mora era, UCLA still finds a way to USC for the third straight season. If nothing else, UCLA should still “run LA” come the final whistle on November 22.
Verdict: Win
Stanford: We can already write the script for this game: UCLA isn’t able to move the ball against Stanford’s elite defense, Stanford runs the ball down UCLA’s throat, and Stanford magically looks better in the red zone than it has all season (because David Shaw seems to inexplicably save his rare good play-calling games for UCLA). Stanford’s dominance in the trenches ultimately proves telling in a somewhat close Cardinal victory, marring Brett Hundley’s and Eric Kendricks‘s last game at the Rose Bowl.
Verdict: Loss
Summary
It seems to me that the best regular season record we can hope for is 8-4, with 7-5 looking likely and 6-6 very much in play. A team that had so much promise was exposed as potentially fraudulent in the first two games against Virginia and Memphis, and was confirmed as such these past two weekends at the Rose Bowl by Utah and Oregon. Jim Mora is likely to have some serious housecleaning to perform on his staff come December in order to keep the ship righted.