UCLA Football: How did the 2018 spring game compare to the regular season?

How did the 2018 spring game compare to the regular season? (cont.)

The QBs kept the ball more often on IZR and OZR read plays in the Spring (5/15 for 33%) than in the regular season (25/249 for 10%). The sample size is incredibly small for the Spring game here, but this factoid backs up a qualitative observation I noted during my re-watch; that it felt like the QBs were keeping it more often. I would guess this has more to do with constantly rotating Spring QBs way down the depth chart wanting to get some burn than coaching constraints. This would be a reason to temper expectations if DTR or another QB has a big zone read keep outburst in the 2019 Spring game.

They wound up using play action a lot more often in the Spring than in the regular season.  They faked on 15 of 33 pass plays (45% of the time) in the Spring vs only 96 of 468 pass plays (21% of the time) in the regular season. The Spring play action usually looked like a fake OZR.

More from Go Joe Bruin

• UCLA Football: It’s time for the nation to meet Dante Moore
• UCLA Football: Where are they ranked heading into week 4
• UCLA Football: Position battle breakdown for Utah showdown
• UCLA vs. Utah: Location, time, prediction, and more
• UCLA Football: Highlights from Chip Kelly’s appearance on the Jim Rome Show

This makes a ton of sense given the focus on OZR running. While regular season play fakes were an unmistakable upgrade to the passing game, Spring play fakes were a mixed bag of better success rate (33% SR on fakes vs 17% success rate w/o them) with worse YPP (4.5 YPP on fakes vs 6.9 YPP w/o them). Small sample makes me question the outcomes, but I find it really interesting that they were looking to fake more early on but changed course during the Fall. It’s also worth noting that the Spring game Pac-12 TV announcers fell into the current trend of incorrectly attributing the Run-Pass Option (RPO) label to a bunch of definitely fake hand-offs.

In the Spring, QBs and RBs rotated together through every single series.  Modster was always paired with Bolu Olorunfunmi.  Lynch was always paired with Kelley.  Gibbs and Burton were paired with Soso Jamabo, Cole Kinder, and Brandon Stephens for whole series at a time. There was one exception to this. The only time an RB was pulled mid-series during the entire Spring game was after Stephens dropped an outlet pass that would have gone for a nice gain. I’m not trying to single a kid out, drops happen, but this was an under the radar way to see accountability being applied, at least with the RB rotation.

If we set our eyes on the (not yet announced) 2019 Spring game, we should expect to see a scheme that is more complex than the 2018 Spring game, but probably less complex than the place the team wound up in at the end of 2018.  Fan focus should rightly continue to be on individual player evaluations, but there will be hints of the scheme to come in how the offense is organized.