The Eye Test: UCLA Plays a Glorified Scrimmage Against Bowling Green

The Bruins were never in real danger of losing, so they took the time to try some things.

Devin Kirkwood records a sack against Bowling Green. (Photo credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports via uclabruins.com)

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Welcome to the Eye Test! The Eye Test is our way to break down each UCLA football game to determine how the team performed on an individual and team-wide level, and gauge how the team is progressing throughout the season. The Eye Test is divided into five categories: Offense, Defense, Special Teams, Coaching, and Vibes.

Yes, you are reading that right: I have once again decided to make a change to the fifth category, and instead of Preparedness we are going with Vibes. Vibes is pretty simple - it’s a pass/fail category where I’m just measuring the feelings around the program both before and during the game. Positive vibes get a pass while negative vibes get a fail. And as usual, grades are up to my discretion.

Speaking of my discretion, it’s my seventh year of doing these, and for the first time ever I don’t have the heart or energy to do an in-depth breakdown of a game. There’s a pretty good reason, though: nothing of note actually happened in this game. The UCLA Bruins may have been losing at the end of the 1st quarter, but at no point in the game did it really feel like UCLA was in danger of losing. I think the coaching staff and players felt the same way, which meant things were looser and more chaotic at the start, tightened up when they needed to, and then relaxed when the game was well and truly out of hand. Trying to grade something like this feels like an impossible task, so I’m not going to do any big details for this game, and instead talk about things generally in each category.

(I should note here: this will probably be how things go for the next three games as well. None of Alabama State, South Alabama, or Colorado should provide anything resembling a threat.)

So let’s get into a more general Eye Test.

Offense

Grade: B

This game was an object lesson of stats not telling the whole story. The Bruins put up 626 yards of total offense, gaining 269 yards on the ground on 6.0 YPC while throwing for 357 yards through the air. The Bruins ran 92 plays and averaged 6.8 yards per play. That’s going to win you a lot of games in general.

But digging deeper, the rushing stats in particular aren’t great. The Bruins ran the ball 45 times, and seven of those counted as explosive runs of 10+ yards. The explosive runs account for 145 yards, or over half of UCLA’s total, and one of those was the 68 yard scamper by Dorian Thompson-Robinson on a broken play. Take out DTR’s run and the Bruins had a less-impressive 4.6 YPC; take out all of those explosive runs and you have the Bruins running for a poor 3.3 YPC over 38 attempts.

The passing game has similar issues, especially when you look at the distribution of the passes. The Bruins only threw the ball 15+ yards downfield once all game, while they threw within five yards of the line of scrimmage 29 times. The overall offensive success rate on the game was 38%, which is below average. Not ideal when playing against Bowling Green, a team that currently sits at 110th in defensive SP+.

A lot of the issues in this game can be boiled down to offensive line play, particularly at the tackle positions. I figured in my preseason look that the offensive line could be a problem due to a lack of experience and cohesion, but I was not expecting it to look this bad. Raiqwon O’Neal had some struggles on the left side, which is not ideal when you consider that O’Neal should have had plenty of experience as a multi-year starter at Rutgers against better competition, and Garrett DiGiorgio was a huge problem on the right side, looking utterly lost against Bowling Green’s rush. The Falcons threw some blitzes at the Bruins which affected things as well, but we are talking about a bottom-rung MAC team here; in year five of the Chip Kelly era, the offensive line should not be struggling in these types of games. The right side in particular is going to be a point of contention for the Bruins going forward, and something they need to fix in a hurry.

One other thing I noticed is that the Bruins are seemingly lacking in pass-catching talent. Last year, the combination of Kyle Philips and Greg Dulcich was enough to cause nightmares for opposing defenses, as you had to try and scheme to stop one or both of them, while also dealing with a potent UCLA rushing attack. This year, the Bruins are lacking even one guy who will seemingly fit into those spots. Kazmeir Allen comes the closest, but he’s not a true downfield threat like Philips and Dulcich were, and the Bruins smartly choose to get Allen the ball quickly and let him work in space. Jake Bobo was supposed to be the Kyle Philips replacement, but he was barely used in the passing game and had a disastrous special teams day. Michael Ezeike is likely going to feature more in the passing game, and he had a nice start to the season, but it wasn’t a game-breaking performance like Dulcich would routinely deliver. The Bruins only had six pass plays that went for 15+ yards, and four of those were quick hits within five yards of the line of scrimmage.

These are things to monitor going forward. The good news is that the Bruins still have Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Zach Charbonnet, which means the floor of the offense will remain pretty high despite deficiencies in other areas. DTR had a solid game in general, especially in light of the pressure he constantly found himself under, while Charbonnet had an efficient opening game. Charbonnet only had 21 carries, which is good in that the coaching staff kept his workload low. Keegan Jones had a good game in relief of Charbonnet as well, looking like a quality backup that a bellcow like Charbonnet requires.

Defense

Grade: A-

We were never going to learn a ton about the UCLA defense in this game. In his offseason coaching gossip column for Athlon, Steven Godfrey got another MAC coach to admit that Bowling Green was so bad offensively that they decided to sit in their base defense the entire game. UCLA essentially did the same thing, so it’s hard to take much from this.

What we can say right off the bat is that things look improved for now. Bowling Green was held to a 23% success rate on offense, which is hilariously bad, and a lot of the credit goes to improved defensive line play. The Murphy twins look like a good upgrade on the outside, while Carl Jones was a menace every time he got to be on the field. Surprisingly, Laiatu Latu also got on the field and looked solid as well. The interior, which featured a rotation of Martin Andrus, Jay Toia, and Gary Smith, was solid as well. The defense was able to get consistent pressure on Falcons QB Matt McDonald, though you would have liked to see them get home more than the two times we saw on Saturday. Run defense similarly was much improved.

I think it also helped the defense to have a consistent presence at linebacker. Darius Muasau was everywhere in this game, and while he did overpursue at times, he already put in a better performance than the Bruins have gotten from the position in the past four years. I’d expect him to get better as he settles in on the field.

Secondary play was fine. They were never really tested (again, hard to judge things in general just due to the talent disparity between the two teams) but Kenny Churchwell had a fine game in particular.

Special Teams

Grade: F

Good lord what a disaster of a group here.

The Bruins had one punt blocked for a touchdown, one punt return muffed and recovered, and two missed field goal attempts. Against a halfway-decent team, that might have been enough to swing things. Alas, Bowling Green is not that team, but the point still stands.

The thing is, we know the team practices special teams, because it’s usually the only thing local media are allowed to see before being escorted away. That said, this was a complete special teams failure, and not a good sign for the future.

Coaching

Offensive Playcalling: B+

Defensive Playcalling: Incomplete (but an A-)

Overall: B

On offense, this one is pretty simple. UCLA wanted to work on some specific stuff, and ultimately adjusted to counter Bowling Green’s pressure. After the 1st quarter, it was basically impossible for Bowling Green to stop the Bruins, and that was all she wrote.

Defensively, outside of one drive Bowling Green could never muster anything resembling a drive, and UCLA never really had to adjust or even do anything interesting schematically. That’s why officially the grade for the defensive playcalling is incomplete, and why I imagine it will likely remain that way through the nonconference schedule. UCLA just has way more talent, and doesn’t need to get crazy in deploying that talent.

The overall grade ends up sitting at a B primarily due to the special teams. It was an all-around disaster that needs to be addressed, and in a game where the Bruins were never truly tested schematically, this has to stand out.

Vibes

Vibe check: Could be better, but not bad

First thing to note here is the heat. Lord it was hot in the Rose Bowl, and even sitting in the shade under the press box served to simply lessen the impact of direct heat. I’m sure it was worse on the field, where we were witness to various Bowling Green players dropping from cramps every other play. UCLA was well-hydrated, so credit to the staff for making sure that facet of the program is handled well.

Generally, though, this feels like a case of wishing things were better. Yes the heat did not help, and yes the early start time did not help, but 27,000+ for a season opener is abysmal, and tells you a ton about the general perception of Chip Kelly’s program in Year Five. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if those attendance numbers don’t climb up a huge amount in the next few weeks, then Kelly may end up on the hot seat just by virtue of fan apathy costing the program money. Fan engagement has always been paramount to Southern California, and UCLA has simply failed to put out an engaging winner that can capture the attention of fickle LA fans. The maxim has always been “if you win, they will come” but I’m not sure if that even holds anymore for Kelly’s Bruins.

Final Composite

Offense grade: B (3.0)

Defense grade: A- (3.7)

Special Teams grade: F (0.0)

Coaching grade: B (3.0)

Vibe check: Fine, could be better

Final grade for Bowling Green Falcons: B- (2.76)

I decided I’m going to weight the grades this year a bit for the final grade, which is how you end up with a B- overall despite one of the grades being an F. That grade also feels right in that UCLA did what they needed to in order to win (and cover!) but didn’t exactly play a great game of football.

Next up is Alabama State. Much like with Bowling Green, it should not be close.

Go Bruins!

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