The Eye Test: UCLA Blows Its Chance Against Southern Cal

The loss came down to an offensive coaching staff that is in way over its head.

Kain Medrano (Photo credit: uclabruins.com)

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It is Thanksgiving weekend, and UCLA football is dead in the water.

I mean, to be fair, that statement could have applied at any point over the past decade, but never has it felt more true than it does at the moment. The Deshaun Foster era has been very moribund, lacking any of the energy that could reignite the fanbase after the dregs of the Chip Kelly era. A win over hated Southern Cal would rouse the fanbase and all assumptions were that this was the one game on the calendar you could count on Foster pulling out all the stops to win.

Instead, the lasting image from this game might be UCLA having started the second half kicking off from their own 5-yard line after two players and an assistant coach got unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for getting into a fight going into the locker room.

That image is such loser behavior and is so indicative of a program that has all year lacked any of the discipline constantly espoused by its head coach. All those black shirts? Those are Southern Cal staff getting their team to back off and head to the locker room. What is the UCLA staff doing to get the team focused? Not much of anything, unless you count the one assistant barking at the Southern Cal players alongside the players. It’s bush league, and in the process, UCLA finally broke my “Don’t do embarrassing things” ask from the preseason.

I’m going to make this one pretty short. The players by and large did not lose this game. That is especially true of the defense, who played as well as you could expect given the circumstances. Unfortunately, they were let down by a coaching staff that could not be bothered to showcase any sort of creativity or effort in winning the game.

By the way, there was a trick play in this game. You’ll never guess which team ran it.

Anyway, let’s get into this.

Offense

Quarterback: B-

Ethan Garbers was generally fine, but as I’ve said this season, he has to be perfect in order for this team to win games, and unfortunately, he was not perfect. That is not a slight against Garbers, and more an indictment of the situation in general. This is college football, and you have to be able to craft an offense that can execute and gain yardage with suboptimal parts. Speaking of suboptimal parts, really quickly…

Offensive Line: D

Bad. Ok back to quarterback.

Like I said, you have to craft an offense that can take advantage of the flaws of the opponent, and in UCLA’s case, that means accounting for an offensive line that is not very good and a quarterback that is limited in his skill set. For example, utilize screens, or move the pocket to give Garbers more time to operate. Or even call some designed runs to get the defense to account for that more often! Garbers has shown a sneaky rushing ability, but too often he’s stuck trying to sit in the pocket, hoping something can happen. By Game 11, you should have a pretty good idea of what your offense can and cannot do, and yet I’m left wondering if the offensive coaching staff is even aware of what their personnel are capable of. Case in point:

Running Backs: B+

Overall: B

On a pivotal 3rd and 1 late in the 4th quarter, UCLA opted for a running play up the middle. Given Ethan Garbers had literally not missed on a throw in the second half at this point, it is a questionable call, but you should be able to pick up one yard. Yet instead of giving the ball to TJ Harden, who had himself a really good game and is big enough to power for one yard, UCLA instead had Keegan Jones in the game, who proceeded to get stood up at the line of scrimmage. It was almost poetic if it wasn’t tragic, as Jones’s freshman year was most-known for his failure to pick up one yard late against Southern Cal when his running backs coach (one Deshaun Foster) put him into the game for that situation. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does love to rhyme.

Defense

Rush Defense: B+

Overall: B+

Woody Marks has been a really good running back for the Trojans, perhaps the best in a long while, and is a potential day 2 pick in the next NFL Draft. UCLA held him in check all day, with Marks finishing with 76 yards on 18 carries. One of the secrets to Lincoln Riley’s offense is that it really wants to run the ball, and with the Trojans having some subpar quarterbacking options (I don’t think Jayden Maiava is a huge upgrade over a bad Miller Moss) behind a suspect offensive line, they would really like to ride their rushing attack as much as possible.

Overall, though, I felt the Bruin defense held up rather well. Part of that was due to some, let’s call them questionable play calls from Lincoln Riley down near the goal line, but the Bruins also forced Southern Cal to scratch and claw for every yard they got. When you’re facing a talent deficit, that’s about as much as you can ask for, and it’s a credit to this defense that they kept giving the offense a shot to win the game. Southern Cal scored only one touchdown last Saturday and was held to four field goals. It was as good as you could reasonably hope for.

Special Teams

Overall: D+

You have to feel for Brody Richter a bit; he went from a clear weapon in the early part of the season to struggling in these past few games. Averaging 35.3 yards across three punts isn’t great, especially considering half of his punt yardage came on one 54-yard punt.

Outside of that, Southern Cal was the first team that really tested UCLA on kickoffs this year, and the result was not great for the Bruins. Makai Lemon got 88 yards on his three kickoff returns, including one 41-yarder that gave the Trojans great field position. Southern Cal’s average starting field position in this game was their own 42-yard line, while the Bruins had an average of their own 22-yard line.

Coaching

Defensive Gameplan: B+

Let’s get the nice one done first: Ikaika Malloe and the defensive coaches did about as well as you could expect given the talent disparities and kept UCLA in this game far longer than they had any right to be. He’s been the only major coach who earned his paycheck this season, and I would say there is a non-zero chance he gets a raise from someone this offseason for this performance.

Offensive Gameplan: F

Overall: F

If Eric Bieniemy is still employed by UCLA on December 2nd, then I will go ahead and state the Deshaun Foster era is D.O.A.

This was just a tragedy of a gameplan from Bieniemy, indicative of why bringing him in as the offensive coordinator was always a bad idea. UCLA never adjusted to what their personnel was capable of, or what Southern Cal’s defense was or was not keying in on. There was no creativity on display, just the standard offense we’ve seen all season despite, you know, the fact that it was not effective for most the season.

There is a specific reason Bieniemy and the offense got an F for this one, and it came on the final offensive drive of the game for the Bruins. On first and second down, UCLA went with passing plays that were incomplete to take us into the Two Minute Timeout which, fine, you could have run the ball before the timeout but that’s fine. The problem came out of the timeout when UCLA should have had multiple plays called and ready to go. Instead, UCLA ran a play that missed, then was forced to call a timeout to avoid a delay of game penalty, thus wasting their one and only timeout in a situation WHERE THE CLOCK WAS ALREADY DEAD. It is a crime that we are in the 11th game of the season and this absolute braindead moron has yet to shorten his playcalls so that the team can line up in a reasonable amount of time. Just unreal stuff that should get him fired as soon as the game ends on Saturday.

As for Foster, I’m done pretending that this was a good coaching effort from him, especially as he continues to say “We’ve got to improve on our discipline” after each game. Foster’s team was trying to fight the opposing team after only scoring three points in a half. He has officially lost the plot on this and needs the hardest of resets this offseason, something I am fairly certain he is incapable of doing.

Trend

Trending: Down

UCLA lost the Victory Bell. Seems like a pretty easy column here.

Final Composite

Offense grade: B (3.0)

Defense grade: B+ (3.3)

Special Teams grade: D+ (1.3)

Coaching grade: F (0.0)

Trending: Down

Final grade for Southern Cal Trojans: C- (1.9)

And as a reminder, here are the scores from other games this year:

Hawai’i Rainbow Warriors: C (1.9)

Indiana Hoosiers: F (0.6)

LSU Tigers: C (1.9)

Oregon Ducks: D+ (1.3)

Penn State Nittany Lions: C+ (2.2)

Minnesota Golden Gophers: C- (1.75)

Rutgers Scarlet Knights: C+ (2.3)

Nebraska Cornhuskers: B+ (3.2)

Iowa Hawkeyes: A- (3.6)

Washington Huskies: C- (1.8)

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There is one game left this season, and UCLA officially has nothing left to play for except pride. That usually is not a recipe for success for UCLA programs in the past.

The one major positive aspect of Deshaun Foster's season has been the team's effort. UCLA has always shown up and given good effort in every game, regardless of whether the coaching staff has matched that effort. With nothing left to play for, will the Bruins show up and give the effort required to beat a Fresno State program that traditionally treats this game as their Super Bowl? Or do we add one more disappointment to the pile?

Go Bruins.

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