UCLA Football: Grading the 2017 Bruin starting wide receivers

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Last season the UCLA Football offense had a number of issues. Among them was a general lack of wide receivers not separating from defensive backs. The next major issue was a case of drops among wideouts.

Even before UCLA Football lost QB Josh Rosen to a shoulder injury in week six, things were not exactly going well for this WR group. There were dropped passes and more often than not nowhere to throw the ball.

With no separation and thus no where to cleanly throw the ball, the UCLA QBs were forced to eat plays and take sacks behind a porous line.

After losing his top three receivers to the NFL Draft in 2016, Rosen struggled to find someone who could consistently catch the ball. The leading receiver from last year returns but is that really much consolation? The Bruins had a receiver come on late in the year who finally started to live up to the hype he made for himself. They also had a guy who had plenty of hype coming into the year but couldn’t get onto the field.

The potential game changer here is new WR coach Jimmie Dougherty who comes to this UCLA Football team with plenty of experience and now needs to work on correcting some of the smaller issues with the receiving group. He previously was with new offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch at Michigan so there shouldn’t be any odd transition period and they should be on the same page.

Personally I’d like to see the Bruins get back to what they were doing under former OC Noel Mazzone particularly with the receiver group. Attack the perimeter which will open the middle of the field and stress defenses.

Will 2016 repeat itself? Go Joe Bruin is here to let you know what you can expect to see from the Bruins’ receivers this year.

Grading the Receivers

The Bruins return their top two receivers in Darren Andrews and Jordan Lasley. While that might excite some teams we need to put this into context. Andrews is an undersized try hard player that doesn’t have the measurables in any facet of his game to scare defenses. He’s not big, he’s not exceptionally fast and isn’t a threat to dominate any game.

What he does well is use his quickness from the slot to win at the top of his routes, especially if he’s given a free release at the line. Over the past three seasons Andrews has steadily improved his totals including a huge jump from his freshman to sophomore season.

One of his best routes is the drag a type of shallow cross and more often than not he is wide open.

He has suffered in one area in particular and that is drops. Andrews has dropped more than a few catchable balls and isn’t the only one.

With him starting in the slot the Bruins give themselves an experienced but limited player. I do think though with new offensive system will allow him to create more separation and expand his route tree but he needs to be better about catching the ball cleanly. I give the slot WR position a C grade.