Cactus Bowl 2017: UCLA Football defense vs. Kansas State offense

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Now that we’ve covered the Kansas State defense it’s time to take a look at their offense before they face off with the UCLA Football Bruins in the Cactus Bowl which is right around the corner.

We have already taken a look at the Kansas State offense vs. the UCLA Football defense but in case you missed it make sure to take a look at it below.

Now of course we can’t talk about the Kansas State offense without first talking about the kind of defense it will face from the UCLA Football team. On paper the starting defense for the 2017 season looked talented in plenty of places but beyond the depth beyond the starting group had plenty of questions.

It wasn’t just the depth that had questions too. There would be new and talented starters but experience was in short supply. Still, I don’t believe anyone would have expected the defense to be a sieve for much of the season. It was the run defense that was particularly upsetting. There were clear depth issues, bad run fits, missed tackles and bad discipline in terms of both eyes and lanes.

The pass defense also endured it’s share of struggles but those issues were compounded with a pass rush that was on life support most of the year. The Bruins rarely got home with just four men and when they had to bring pressure they exposed a young and beat up secondary.

Most concerning was the ease with which, young, inexperienced and raw QBs moved the ball on the UCLA Football defense. K.J. Costello might grow to be the next great Stanford QB but the Bruins should have been able to exploit his youth. Although he didn’t exactly put up video game numbers, what he did do was take full advantage of the man coverage the Bruins were playing to slow the run game.

Even before pulling out the amazing comeback win against Texas A&M, the UCLA defense was having trouble slowing true freshman QB Kellen Mond as he executed the read-option to perfection. Basically the UCLA Football defense boils down to this, if there’s a run game there’s going be trouble.

That doesn’t exactly bode well for the Bruins as they’ll be facing a young QB who was third on the depth chart before injuries forced him in. And oh yeah, there’s a run game to deal with. Let’s start our deep dive into the Kansas State Wildcat offense.