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.
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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.
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.
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.
Next we move onto the perimeter receivers. I’m going to start with Jordan Lasley.
Through this first few seasons for the Bruins, Lasley was hype machine. In practice he’d make great catches and from his own mouth he’d tell you he was the best. However that never carried over onto the field. That is until last year.
If you look at the production Lasley had 10 catches for 109 yards and zero scores in the first four games. Those numbers don’t have anyone jumping out of their seats but that isn’t the end of his 2016.
In the last eight games Lasley went off like gangbusters collecting 31 catches for 511 yards and five scores. That’s just over 16 yards per catch and he averaged a score every 6.2 catches.
However against the Trojans he only came down with two catches even though they both were touchdowns.
Lasley is well built, six-foot-one and 205 pounds, and has breakaway speed however he too has dealt with drops. He cleaned that up a ton in 2016 but there were still instances of those drops showing up at inopportune times.
He’s best in the intermediate passing game where he can use his speed and quick feet to create separation. He’s demonstrated the ability to be strong at the catch point and taken balls away from defenders
Going into the 2017 UCLA Football season Lasley gets his starting QB back but actually had his best production with backup Mike Fafaul. Rosen on the other hand gets a receiver who is riding momentum into the new season which is something he didn’t have in 2016. I’m giving this position a B.
Now the Bruins may open up a number of games going with four WRs on their first snap of the game but this piece is predicated on them only having three starting wideouts which brings us to our last man in the lineup, Eldridge Massington.
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Massington is an interesting case to study because I’m a height/weight/speed guy and he checks those boxes. He ran track in high school but after tearing his ACL before getting into college he never seemed like the same player.
He also seemed to never really put it all together and his 2014 season was the best of his career thus far. That was his last year without Rosen as his QB.
His route running leaves something to be desired and the routes are not nearly as crisp as you’d expect from a player who has been in the program for this long.
Despite being one of the taller receivers on the UCLA Football roster Massington has never been a viable red-zone threat nor has his speed really come to fruition making him a deep ball specialist. Now that might all be different in 2017 with Massington showing off his wheels in a recent Instagram post running the 4x100M. If his speed is truly back the Bruins could have a major weapon outside.
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Of course that is dependent on the reoccurring theme of drops and Massington was as guilty as anyone of dropping balls. He has to clean that up and sharpen his routes. I’m giving this WR spot a C-.