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UCLA Football: Play call/outcome analysis from the Arizona game

By Chris Osgood

PASADENA, CA - OCTOBER 20: Head coach Chip Kelly of the UCLA Bruins congratulates his players after his team scored a touchdown during the first half of the NCAA college football game against the Arizona Wildcats at the Rose Bowl on October 20, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Victor Decolongon/Getty Images)
PASADENA, CA - OCTOBER 20: Head coach Chip Kelly of the UCLA Bruins congratulates his players after his team scored a touchdown during the first half of the NCAA college football game against the Arizona Wildcats at the Rose Bowl on October 20, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Victor Decolongon/Getty Images) /
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PASADENA, CA – OCTOBER 20: Head coach Chip Kelly of the UCLA Bruins congratulates his players after his team scored a touchdown during the first half of the NCAA college football game against the Arizona Wildcats at the Rose Bowl on October 20, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Victor Decolongon/Getty Images)
PASADENA, CA – OCTOBER 20: Head coach Chip Kelly of the UCLA Bruins congratulates his players after his team scored a touchdown during the first half of the NCAA college football game against the Arizona Wildcats at the Rose Bowl on October 20, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Victor Decolongon/Getty Images) /

Go Joe Bruin takes a look at the UCLA football team’s outcomes for the play calling against Arizona to find out what was successful and what still needs work.

While the overall outcome was a win this week for the UCLA football team, there was some definite regression in the offensive production against Arizona.  The Dorian Thompson-Robinson injury and return of Wilton Speight at QB brought back a passing game emphasis.

RELATED: UCLA’s Win Over Arizona Keep them in the Hunt for the South Division

With Speight in the game, the offense as a whole felt like a flashback to the scheme used in the nonconference games (which had us all pondering broke NFL Chip or sandbagging Chip). We’ll get more into this as we progress through the details, but the bottom line is that this offense is still searching for an identity.

The one offensive wrinkle this week was passing out of tightly bunched formations like the one seen HERE. This is 11 personnel (3WR) looking like a mess of tight ends cluttering everything in the middle. I think the idea was to create space in the flats; Allen got his TD catch with a similar alignment. I couldn’t figure out what to call this; “bunch” is a very specific flavor of trips WRs out wide and this isn’t that. It didn’t seem particularly effective (seems like the line was getting confused with so many bodies in the middle), and I hope it goes in the dumpster with other abandoned single game wrinkles.

YPP Chart

Welcome our old friend the third-quarter-lurch back. We missed you, buddy! The return of this lurch could once again be Chip Kelly losing the halftime adjustment battle.  The production overall was very feast/famine this week. There were 14 negative plays and 16 zero yard plays! This is probably the worst counts of those two results all season.  They did however also run the most plays (80) of the season in a single game this week. Possession outcomes really hinged on some clutch 3rd down conversions.