Every year it seems that the UCLA Football team loses a few games they should win. Does that change in 2016?
With 1:09 left in the fourth quarter, after UCLA Football quarterback Josh Rosen marched the Bruins 80 yards down field to take a 27-24 lead, the Washington State Cougars had one last chance to score and were ready to pounce.
It was the last 1:09 the UCLA Football team would be playing at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena that season, right before they begin a two-game road trip at Utah and USC to end the regular season.
At this point in the season the Bruins, Utes and Trojans were all in the running for the Pac-12 South Division, so to say UCLA needed a victory here is a bit of an understatement.
The Bruins were not exactly controlling the game, which was apparent by seven lead changes. Overall on defense last season, UCLA had been stellar against the pass and horrible against the run, so it seemed the Bruins would easily match up with the Cougars who barely ran and frequently passed.
Unfortuately, at this point in the game (and the season), the UCLA Football team waited too long to attack and made very poor choices in trying to execute their game plan. We saw that in the final 1:09 against Wazzu.
Washington State QB Luke Falk was quite efficient in this game as he made 38 of 53 passes (72%) for 331 yards. He had one touchdown at this point in the game and essentially took all the air out of the Bruins when his second TD was caught by Gabe Marks in the endzone with three seconds left in the game to give the Cougs a 31-27 lead.
With little time to counter, UCLA was going to lose this winnable game. It was another contest they should have won, but lost. Unfortuantely, that has been a black mark on Head Coach Jim Mora ever since he got to Westwood.
Next: Consistently Inconsistent