The Philosophical Gamble That Could Define The Jim Mora Era Of UCLA Football

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Sep 25, 2014; Tempe, AZ, USA; Arizona State Sun Devils wide receiver Cameron Smith (6) catches a 29 yard touchdown as UCLA Bruins defensive back Fabian Moreau (10) and defensive back Jaleel Wadood (2) defend during the first half at Sun Devil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports /

The Problems

There are many rationalizations that can be made for UCLA football’s struggles in 2015 (an absurd spate of defensive front seven injuries is the most common), but the two most important reasons that the Bruins did not play up to their potential in 2015 were the glaring philosophical misalignment of the two primary sides of the ball, offense and defense, and a conspicuous refusal to adjust to the realities of the team as the season progressed.

Philosophical Misalignment

The tl;dr version of the schematic philosophical issue goes like this: a hurry-up offense designed to get up the field quickly did not mesh with a defense designed to limit big plays by playing a non-aggressive style.

With the offense trying to get off the field quickly by scoring after four- or five-play drives and the defense content to give up small chunks of yards at a time in order to avoid being burned over the top, the result was a time of possession imbalance that left the defense absolutely gassed by the end of most games after having spent close to double the amount of time on the field as the offense. It wasn’t uncommon to see the Bruins concede more than 40 minutes of possession in a game while having less than 20 minutes with the ball for themselves, which creates a razor-thin margin of error for an offense and enormous amounts of fatigue for a defense.

Failure to Stop the Run

One thing that UCLA did not set out to do schematically on defense was become sieve-like in stopping the run. Poor to mediocre rushing attacks like Nebraska, BYU, and Colorado routinely subjected the Bruin defense to “death by a thousand cuts” by picking up 4-6 yards a carry. And we won’t detail the gruesome manner in which very good rushing teams like Arizona, Stanford and USC thoroughly dominated the UCLA defensive front in the run game.

Failure to Adjust

However, despite surely realizing at some point that the run defense was a huge liability, UCLA’s defensive coaches at no point made any readily visible attempt to adjust the scheme away from the base 4-2-5, commit more linebackers and safeties to run blitzing, or generally do anything outside of staying the course and persisting with soft six- and seven-man coverages to negate the big pass even while the defensive line was getting gashed through the middle repeatedly.

More from Go Joe Bruin

Also, the UCLA secondary finished at the top of the conference against the pass, sparing Demetrice Martin‘s group a lot of the criticism leveled at other units on the team. However, one would imagine that if the Bruin coaches truly trusted that the secondary was as good as its statistics indicated, they would have diverted resources away from pass coverage and into filling gaps against the run.

Even in a game in which the secondary struggled, Bradley’s defense continued to be stubborn and inflexible in adjusting to an opponent’s offensive game. Washington State used a quick and short passing game to march up the field in small chunks in lieu of an interior running game. While the effect on time of possession was not as glaring as it would have been against a rushing-based attack, the Bruins still did not make adjustments to counter the short passing game by playing press coverage against the Cougars to take the short throws away and daring them to beat the UCLA secondary down the field instead.

When there is evidence of woes against either the run or the pass in certain games (but strangely enough, no games in which the Bruins were susceptible to both the run and the pass), that points to stubbornness and a refusal to change the status quo in order to change the trajectory of the matchup.

Next: The Riskiness of Mora's Vision