Go Joe Bruin
Fansided

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

By Chris Osgood

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 17: Wilton Speight #3 of the UCLA Bruins passes during a 34-27 win over the USC Trojans at Rose Bowl on November 17, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 17: Wilton Speight #3 of the UCLA Bruins passes during a 34-27 win over the USC Trojans at Rose Bowl on November 17, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
3 of 5
Next
(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) /

YPP Chart

There were rolling average spikes at the start of 1st and 4th Quarters. This is a lot like last week’s ASU chart (consistency wise), just better overall production. The 2nd quarter play count kept defenses fresh for a physical 2nd half. I often note the offense stumbles in YPP production after halftime, but that didn’t happen against USC. If you focus in on possessions 5 and 6, the YPP average took a hit and bottomed out for the game, but those were long sustained drives which ate up clock and resulted in a single TD. This shows how YPP isn’t a reliable indicator in a vacuum. The two outlier positive large chunk plays were runs, which is unusual for 2018 UCLA (only 5 of the 20 longest plays >=30 yards are runs so far this season).

Game Summary

Usage of Check-With-Me saw a big jump up this week (used 20 times) after almost disappearing last week (used only 6 times vs ASU), and continues to be a reliable favorable outlier (65% success rate against USC). Check-With-Me had two in-season firsts that are worth noting: they checked from shotgun into pro ace (under center), and also sideline checked from under center.  Chip is trusting the players with more and more complexity now that they have built a solid foundation.

Dear Chip: full time Check-With-Me for Stanford?  Is that even feasible?

It’s always great to see the success rate climb as the offense works deeper in their sets of downs  (1st 46%, 2nd 54%, 3rd 57%).  Run YPP production peaked early in the downs (8.2 YPP on 1st) while passing YPP was better after first down (2nd down 9.0 YPP, 3rd diwb 8.3 YPP passing).  Anytime you can confidently run the ball 81% of the time on 2nd down, your offense is not falling behind schedule.

Chip was able to also confidently run on 56% of passing downs and achieve a 44% overall success rate on passing downs (national average PD success rate is around 31%).  This is indicative of a team that is asserting a run identity. They were also in passing downs a season-low 24% of plays.

The offense peaked in the 1st quarter in almost every category as compared to the other quarters, and most explosive as compared to any slice of data in the game summary table (17.2 YPP on successes). Chip brought in a solid game plan for USC, took a step back after initial adjustments in the 2nd quarter, then put things back together slowly over the 2nd half.  The 2nd quarter saw chip veer toward too much passing and a low run success rate. That 2nd quarter in this way felt more like the rest of the UCLA 2018 season.