As the Bruins football schedule hits its critical three week stretch a few UCLA truths are evident. How they get enhanced or corrected determines what the season looks like next month. Will the Bruins be playing meaningful games in November for the first time in at least five years? Is a high-end bowl game still in the picture? Or is the fan base ready to settle in for any bowl game being a step up? The answer to those issues clearly plays a huge role in determining the fate of Chip Kelly’s future in Westwood.
The Tough Wins
The first truth is the Bruins need to win two of the three games ahead in October against Washington, Oregon, and Utah in order to start thinking about better bowl games. Two wins guarantees a six-win season. The remaining games would be against Colorado, USC, and Cal. There should be at least two more wins in there. That would put UCLA at an eight-win season and calm the emotions…for now. Anything below that and all bets are off. Every coach who has been at UCLA since and including the 2000 season has been fired as the team made a low tier bowl game in the final season. That is four coaches fired and four bowl games with interim coaches in the last 21 years.
Pass Defense Must Get Better Today
The next truth is UCLA’s pass defense has a very limited time window to step up. The Bruins, statistically speaking, are one of the worst pass defenses in the country. They are allowing 307 yards per game through the air. That makes them 126th out of 130 schools. The idea, proposed earlier in the season, that teams are throwing against UCLA because the Bruins are shutting down the run have proven to be erroneous. Yes, UCLA’s run defense stats are good. They have been fortunate to load up against teams that have poor rushing games for the entire season, not just in their games against UCLA.
That gets us to this week in Seattle. The Huskies do not have a strong run game. They have four running backs at their disposal. But the use of them by the coaching staff has come under criticism. While there are four at head coach Jimmy Lake’s disposal, there is no go-to guy. None of them has even 200 yards total on the season. Quarterback Dylan Morris is no threat to reel off a lot of yards. He has a net of minus-15 yards on 25 carries this season.
A hyper focused effort on defense against the passing game is THE answer. Morris is second in the conference with 252 yards passing per game. But his completion rate is a very pedestrian 58.9%. He has seven touchdowns against six interceptions. The numbers say he is vulnerable.
Lake acknowledged this week that his team lacks balance on offense. “It still comes back to we have to find a running game,” Lake said. “And then off that running game, we have to find a passing game where we can protect Dylan and make sure we get the ball out on time.” Lake said the Huskies are, “Nowhere near where they need to be.” UCLA’s defense, its pass defense in particular, needs to improve its numbers and take advantage of that.
Running Equals Winning
Another truth into UCLA’s future; as go Brittain Brown and Zach Charbonnet, so go the Bruins. Through this tough three-game gauntlet, UCLA is less likely to survive the kind of one for eight for three yards passing halves that Dorian Thompson-Robinson got away with last week against a bad Arizona team. And while he has had some very good halves this season, he has rarely had two of them in the same game.
But the only bad game that has come from the running backs was when the coaching staff failed to make adjustments against Fresno State. The Bulldogs stacked the box with seven defenders to stop the run and there were no halftime adjustments made to counter that. Throughout most of the season, both Brown and Charbonnet have proven highly effective both as runners and as pass catchers out of the backfield.
Lake acknowledged that UCLA’s running game concerns him. “They present a lot of challenges,” he said. Lake spent some time last season studying game film of Charbonnet. The running back was at Michigan at the time, and Washington was scheduled to play Michigan prior to Covid forcing everyone into a conference-only schedule. “He’s a big-time football player. Really good size. He’s got good speed. He was a special football player coming out of high school. You can see he is that and then some now in college.”
Washington’s Run Defense
To add to that, the Washington run defense has not been good this season. Kelly adamantly disagreed with that premise when asked about it. “Have you watched film?” Kelly asked Wednesday. “Watch the film and tell me they don’t look great. You see 55, 91, 48, 94.” Ok, but the results are the results and the Huskies rushing defense is 99th in the country, giving up 181 yards rushing per game. And none of the teams they have played thus far have a running back tandem like Brown and Charbonnet.
Washington is getting back one of its best defensive players. Linebacker Zion Tupuola-Fetui ruptured his Achille’s tendon in Spring camp. But he has slowly been working his way back and will see some action Saturday. Last year he was a second team All American who led the country in sacks and forced fumbles per game. But he is not going to be 100% and will be limited in playing time. He is also not one of the jersey numbers rattled off by Kelly. He wears #58 in case you do not have your Washington Huskies roster handy while you read this.
Add in Thompson-Robinson’s deft running skills along with Charbonnet and Brown and the game plan going forward should be clear. Next week, week two of the gauntlet run, the Bruins will face an Oregon team whose defense has been decimated in recent days by injuries. Start the run engines this weekend in Seattle.
Now Or Never
The last truth, at least for this moment, is that the time is now. UCLA is poised to have its best season in the four-year long Chip Kelly era. But how good it is, or can be, is still very much up in the air. And while it is far too soon to even think about anything for next year, anyone with any concept of how college football works knows that next year’s squad is a rebuilding process. UCLA will lose upwards of 75% of its starters from this year’s team. That is the flip side of having one of the most experienced teams in the country. There comes a time to turn the calendar, and those players are not there anymore. Upping the UCLA profile into something viable on the national college football landscape starts this weekend. The time to expect more, and get more, is now.
