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

By Chris Osgood

PASADENA, CA - OCTOBER 06: Head coach Chip Kelly of the UCLA Bruins on the sidelines during the second half of the game against the Washington Huskies at the Rose Bowl on October 6, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images)
PASADENA, CA - OCTOBER 06: Head coach Chip Kelly of the UCLA Bruins on the sidelines during the second half of the game against the Washington Huskies at the Rose Bowl on October 6, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images) /
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PASADENA, CA – OCTOBER 20: Quarterback Wilton Speight #3 of the UCLA Bruins passes the ball in the second half during the NCAA college football game against the Arizona Wildcats at the Rose Bowl on October 20, 2018 in Pasadena, California. The Bruins defeated the Wildcats 31-30. (Photo by Victor Decolongon/Getty Images)
PASADENA, CA – OCTOBER 20: Quarterback Wilton Speight #3 of the UCLA Bruins passes the ball in the second half during the NCAA college football game against the Arizona Wildcats at the Rose Bowl on October 20, 2018 in Pasadena, California. The Bruins defeated the Wildcats 31-30. (Photo by Victor Decolongon/Getty Images) /

Game Overview

The hot debate topic of this lost season is DTR vs Speight. There are a ton of levers for this argument; future talent development vs win now, dual threat vs pocket passer, steady experienced hand vs higher ceiling. The last time we had a single game with significant playing time for both of them, there was no clear-cut statistical leader.

For this particular opponent and game plan, Speight wound up being much more effective.  The run pass balance shift to passing was really more of a function of game situation than QB personnel (41% run w/ DTR, 33% run with Speight). Speight had better success rates and YPP across all categories. DTR’s offense had 18 zero or negative plays while Speight’s offense had 13 zero or negative plays (on slightly less Speight playing time).   It is very odd that the running game wound up much more successful under Speight (75% Speight to 58% DTR).

More from Go Joe Bruin

Check-With-Me sideline checks continue to be used more and more (used on 29% of plays this week after only 14% of Arizona game plays and 22% of Utah game plays) as the team gains confidence in their ability to diagnose the defense and execute the check signals. They seem to have more variability in what they can check into of late, and continue to have a much higher success rate (60% success rate on checks vs 43% without them). Checking was used more often when Speight was in (25% of Speight plays vs 17% of DTR plays); which feels more of a small sample size result than anything telling.  They continue to only have the ability to check from Shotgun (so far).  Expect these checks to continue to increase in frequency, I think it really leverages Chip’s real-time decision making.

Pre-snap motion is also on the rise (used on 25% of plays this week) and was more of a run tell this week (76% run plays after motion).  Motion still leads to a better success rate (57% this week) than non-motion plays.  The building blocks for something more UCF-ish are there.

Turning our attention to the down schedule; run success rate really came on strong as the downs increased (56% 1st -> 75% 2nd -> 100% 3rd/4th).  Passing success rates inverted that trend (48% 1st -> 35% 2nd ->17% 3rd -> 0% 4th).  This inability to successfully pass the ball on 3rd down and obvious passing downs continues the theme from the Utah game and is the single biggest thing this offense needs to work on.  They still had 39 plays on 1st down (almost half of all plays) and were only in passing downs 29% of the time.  They did a good job staying on schedule, just couldn’t dig themselves out when they fall behind schedule (for the 2nd week in a row).