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

By Chris Osgood

PASADENA, CA - NOVEMBER 24: Wilton Speight #3 of the UCLA Bruins passes the ball under pressure from Gabe Reid #90 of the Stanford Cardinal during the second half of a game at the Rose Bowl on November 24, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
PASADENA, CA - NOVEMBER 24: Wilton Speight #3 of the UCLA Bruins passes the ball under pressure from Gabe Reid #90 of the Stanford Cardinal during the second half of a game at the Rose Bowl on November 24, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
(Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images) /

The UCLA football team took the field for the last time in 2018 against Stanford and their play-calling was a departure from what we been used to this season.

The UCLA Football team’s season is over and it has been an interesting year with Chip Kelly. Even more so when you look at what he did against Stanford compared to the rest of the season.

RELATED: Where Does the UCLA Offense Go From Here? Recap and Outlook

UCLA has been doing well running the ball this season, but they went pass-heavy and did some damage against Stanford, but was it the correct decision?

An Abandoned Run Game

Heading into the Stanford game, S&P+ told us that the UCLA offense would have an advantage running the ball against the Stanford defense. After the USC game, UCLA had the 21st nationally ranked rushing offense and Stanford had the 75th ranked rushing defense. UCLA’s passing offense at that point was 73rd ranked going up against Stanford’s 82nd ranked pass defense.

Related Story. UCLA Can't Complete the Comeback Against Stanford. light

It was near-universally thought that UCLA would have to run a lot and run well to beat Stanford.  Unfortunately, this was obvious to Stanford as well. UCLA wound up running near a season-low 33% of plays (the Utah game was the season-low 30% run to pass balance) in a game they were never trailing by a lot. After the game, Thuc Nhi Nguyen (who asks thoughtful questions about the game flow and strategy, which returns thoughtful and verbose responses) probed Chip about the lackluster run game.  Chip said:

"You got to give them credit, they wanted to take away the run, they played a lot of man coverage and you got to take what they give. It’s the same thing we did, we tried to take away their run and you got to capitalize… it was a game where I don’t think either team was going to let either [Bryce] Love or [Joshua] Kelley beat em. They took ours away, we took theirs away, so it turned into a throwing game."

Let’s take a look at how UCLA got away from the run over the course of the game.

This chart shows every run play by UCLA against Stanford.  They had some big gainers in the 1st half with an early OZR and a Tackle-Over (unbalanced) tendency breaking WR Jet Sweep (notably away from strong side). That WR Jet Sweep was technically a pass, but I’m treating it as a run for this exercise. The first half IZRs were a mixed bag. The 2nd quarter was where Stanford throttled the UCLA run game, but that included 4 straight smash mouth plays on the Stanford 1 and 2-yard lines (which *did* result in a touchdown).