Offseason edition looking back on the 2018 season

The 2018 season welcomed the arrival of Chip Kelly for the UCLA Bruins. Due to his success at Oregon in the early 2010’s this was considered a huge get for UCLA. After a couple stints in the NFL that didn’t work out. Kelly was back in the college landscape, ready to bring his groundbreaking offenses back. When he was at Oregon, the Ducks put up yards and points at a rapid pace. Even taking them into championship contention. Kelly was the man for the job and ready to take UCLA back to the top 10.

UCLA wasn’t expected to compete very much in the 2018 season. But they were not expected to jump out of the gates at 0-5. They really struggled on both sides of the football. Before being able to break out with a few PAC-12 wins against California and Arizona. They would then struggle into the finish going 1-3 over the last four games and finishing 3-9 on the season. Dorian Thompson-Robinson was slowly worked in to become the quarterback of the future.

The Bruins offense was only able to score 24.6 points per game. While the defense gave up 34.1 points per game. Although Kelly’s offense struggled to put up points, the ground game showed that it was good in his first season. As Joshua Kelley was able to run for 1,243 yards and 12 touchdowns. Chip was known for being able to have a great ground game at both the college and NFL level. Caleb Wilson established himself as an NFL tight end as well as a good safety blanket. The Bruins positive on the season is they did beat crosstown rival USC.

The defense showed a lot of potential throughout the year. They were very young but would eventually have some big playmakers come off that team. Quentin Lake being one of them, who has become quite a good NFL player. At 3-9, it is not what you want to see out of UCLA. But there was patience that was needed as Kelly built his team. Thompson-Robinson showed his potential as a passer and runner to be a good quarterback to see this thing though.