UCLA Football: Could the Bruins be a landing spot for Shea Patterson?

The wild ride that is the Chip Kelly train continues to roll on. Reports of the staff coming together should have the fans taking their excitement to another level but the staff isn’t the only part of this team that could be welcoming new faces. UCLA Football fans might have a new QB next year by way of Oxford.

No not that Oxford. With the NCAA handing down sanctions to the Ole Miss Rebels that includes a bowl ban next year, they’ve also ruled that any seniors wishing to transfer may do so without the usual “sit one year” penalty. This means any player who meets the previously stated criteria can transfer from Ole Miss to any other FBS school and be eligible to play immediately. While there could potentially be a few players the Bruins would like to have, there’s only one right now that has a realistic chance to join the UCLA Football team.

And he’s only a sophomore.

QB Shea Patterson was a major recruit for the Rebels when they landed him in the 2016 recruiting class. He started as a true freshman and has been dubbed “Johnny Manziel 2.0″ because of his playmaking ability with both his arms and legs. And that’s only on what he did in the last three games of the season. Chad Kelly was the starter for the Rebels before being lost to injury late in the season. Patterson came in and was 1-2 with six scores and three interceptions but it was his ability to create plays outside of structure that has everyone excited.

In 10 games Patterson has thrown for amost 3200 yards, 17 scores and nine picks. He’s also added 153 yards and one score on the ground.

Now as we said he’s only a sophomore and the NCAA ruled that seniors are the only ones who can transfer without penalty so how does he help this team in 2018? Well following Patterson’s electric freshman year he picked up right where he left off until he was hurt against LSU in the Rebel’s 7th game of the season. In that game he tore his PCL but will be almost 10 months removed that injury when the season begins for the Bruins.

Because he didn’t play until the ninth game of the season in 2016 and has missed the five games of the 2017 not including a potential bowl game, the Patterson family reportedly feels that an NCAA waiver will be given to Shea when he decides which team to play for next year. The only catch for Patterson?

While Ole Miss has given him permission to transfer they have made it clear he cannot go to another SEC school he also cannot choose a school that will be on the Rebels’ schedule in the next two seasons. Luckily there’s only one PAC-12 team that will be unavailable to Patterson and it isn’t the UCLA Football team.

Also working in favor of the Bruins is the fact that the Chip Kelly offense would be a perfect fit for Patterson. Oregon QBs were almost always excellent athletes who could hurt you with their legs or with their throwing arm, Patterson’s game, and because they were typically such strong running teams opposing defenses would be forced to load the box and play man outside. Meaning, if the Ducks’ QB wanted to run he typically could run into a secondary that was facing away from him for big yardage. That’s right up Patterson’s alley.

The other rumored school in contention with UCLA is Michigan who is losing former starer Wilton Speight to transfer and hasn’t received great play in his relief when he was injured. However in my opinion, Patterson is a much better fit and has a much greater opportunity for an early impact at UCLA. Major reason why is because the Bruins will likely lose QB Josh Rosen to the NFL and were looking to have commit Dorian Thompson-Robinson compete for the starting job in 2018.

If the Bruins can land Patterson and red-shirt DTR they can not only fire on all cylinders offensively with an experienced QB but also keep their young QB in their back pocket should Patterson do well in 2018 and declare for the NFL.

Next: Report: Chip Kelly hires Don Pellum as UCLA Football LB coach

As excited as many are about DTR coming to UCLA with Kelly at the helm, landing Patterson and saving DTR for the future would be another stroke of genius for this UCLA Football team to go along with landing Kelly’s services for the foreseeable future.