UCLA Football: Play call/outcome analysis from the Utah game
By Chris Osgood
The UCLA football team had a rough outing last Friday night against the Utah Utes in a 41-10 loss. Go Joe Bruin looks at what went wrong for such an outcome to unfold.
Even though the offensive performance vs Utah was the flat-out worst for the UCLA football team this year, there are still plenty of interesting ways to look at the piece part results. Some previous tendencies were broken (on purpose), and some elements are still working well within the larger theme of failure.
RELATED: UCLA’s Loss to Utah Erases Hope That Has Been Generated in Recent Weeks
It’s important to remember this week that Utah has an incredibly stout run defense according to SBN Bill Connelly’s profiles. Utah had the 25th ranked rushing S&P+ heading into the UCLA game, and is/was top 10 in Rushing Marginal Efficiency and Stuff Rate. The Utah pass defense is also no slouch, ranked 37th overall in passing S&P+ (also before the UCLA game).
* Bill Connelly SBN profile for Utah heading into UCLA game.
Yards-Per-Play Chart
The 2nd drive looked great, then the wheels came off. There were only two negative plays (a single sack and an OZR that Utah was ready for) this week. This offense usually has a lot of negative plays, even when things are going well. While Speight is not a mobile as DTR, he’s better at avoiding sacks and getting the ball out when there’s a man in his face. Turning those sacks into in-completions is… something.
Only four big chunk plays, which would have been much better without critical drops by Felton, C Wilson, and Lee. The late 3rd quarter YPP lull was the result of having to throw the game plan out and try to come from behind with undisguised passing. Chip didn’t seem to lose halftime adjustments as much as the entire team simply let the whole thing get away.