Know Your Opponent: UCLA Football vs. Stanford 2017

Stanford Cardinal Offense

In their first game, Stanford travelled to Australia and pummeled Rice, 62-7. Two weeks later they battle it out with USC and lost 42-24. The narrative seems to be “USC was just the better team this year.” That narrative changed to “What is wrong with Stanford?” after they lost to San Diego State University, 20-17.

Quarteback Keller Chryst looked solid against Rice, held his own against USC and totally dropped the ball against SDSU, or should I say, gave the ball away as he had two interceptions. He also went 9/20 for 72 yards. SDSU has a good defense, but not great, and yet they were able to limit Stanford to under 100 yards through the air.

The run game is a different story as the Cardinal has one of the best running backs in the nation as Bryce Love has a total of 524 yards (2nd in NCAA) and 4 touchdowns. And here is the minblowing stat, Love averages 12.2 yards per carry. PER CARRY!

That does not bode well for the UCLA run defense which is once again having difficulties (though surprisingly, against Memphis, UCLA had better run defense (162) than pass defense which gave up 398 yards).

My guess, because it happens every year, is Stanford will grind down UCLA’s “bend but don’t break” defense and go right after some of the Bruins’ younger players who are filling in for several injured defensemen.