UCLA Football: Five things to watch for at the Spring Game

2. The many, many offensive “options”

When spring practice started at the beginning of March, the Bruins were going through some simple fundamentals on offense. Snapping the ball, footwork, proper ball carrying techniques, hand position to receive catches, etc.

Kelly wanted to make sure that fundamentals were being taught and learned before they can move onto more complex ideas, especially when it comes to the running game, which has been abhorrent the last few seasons. That is not going to fly in a Kelly-run offense, so every ball carrier needed to start from the ground up. And now that they are up to speed, it was time to add a new element to the run game.

A few weeks ago we saw something new with the offense. As Kelly wants to focus on running the ball, he also wants his team to work on deception, exploiting matchup’s and finding the best “option” to advance the ball down the field. That is when we saw the triple-option in practice.

We had seen a bit of the zone read and RPO before spring break, but now the third option (pun intended) for the run game is making its way into the offense. Runs up the middle or quarterback keepers or sideline pitches to a second running back, we should see it all, at least elements of it.

But let us not forget about UCLA’s passing game. Though the offense will be run-based, watch for how the receivers get involved in the game, especially based off the option. Thats where some RPO comes into play.