The Eye Test: UCLA’s Dominant Performance Against Maryland Has People Dreaming

The Bruins put on a show last Saturday, opening the door for a magical season in the process.

The UCLA Bruins lived in the end zone against Maryland. (Photo credit: Isabella Serafini/uclabruins.com)

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Welcome to a weekend bye-week edition of the Eye Test! If you were freaking out about a lack of Eye Test this week, don’t fret; I just felt that releasing this during the weekend would give people a hit of UCLA football to tide them over during the off week.

And what a hit this will be. UCLA went to Maryland and absolutely plastered the Terrapins, catapulting themselves back into the Top 25 and likely ending the Mike Locksley era in the process. Combined with the inevitable Southern Cal loss to a superior opponent that yet again proves it isn’t happening under Lincoln Riley, UCLA football fans are flying high.

Now, here’s the fun part: I don’t think UCLA played an amazing game of football. That might be a weird thing to hear about a game the Bruins won 54-3, but UCLA left a lot of meat on the bones, and won a blowout while playing a B+ game (is that what the final grade ended up as? No idea! I wrote this before anything else!). That’s genuinely impressive and exciting for the future.

But let’s get into the details.

Offense

Quarterback: C+

Maybe the most impressive part of this victory is that UCLA rolled up 475 yards and 40 offensive points despite getting a pedestrian performance from their star quarterback. And I don’t mean that as a slight towards Nico Iamaleava, but mean it more as a statement that Nico did not have to be Superman for the Bruins to have another great offensive performance.

One of the interesting aspects of this game is that Nico was not much of a factor in the run game. Technically, Nico had six rushing attempts for a total of six yards, though one of them came on a scramble to avoid taking a sack (and one of them was the lone sack that Nico took). Iamaleava did not find the holes that he had in recent weeks, but then again, he was not utilized much in the run game as he has been in the past - his best play came on an option pitch that he held until the last second before giving the ball to Wayne Knight, who was able to scamper for 33 yards. Given the hits Iamaleava has taken in the past few weeks, this was the right call to help him get healthier.

Passing was more of a struggle, but for understandable reasons. It was very wet conditions, which didn’t help, but Nico was not very accurate either. His one touchdown pass to Aiden Mizell was more a result of a great play by Mizell rather than anything Iamaleava did.

Also contributing to this grade: Madden Iamaleava, who played most of the 4th quarter in relief of his older brother. Madden was fine and did not throw a pass (which ideally we would have gotten in this game if conditions were better, just to get him some live reps), but he did fine. The initial bobbled snap was more on Madden, but he at least recovered enough to not have a turnover.

Running Backs: A

I don’t have anything new or exciting here; Wayne Knight is the truth, Anthony Woods has excelled, and somehow Jaivian Thomas is the one doing the yeoman’s work of getting all the hard yards.

It was fun to see Troy Leigbar’s touchdown run, and Karson Cox was likely going to have one as well before he fumbled at the five-yard line. Cox’s development going forward will be interesting, as he is theoretically next in line once the Knight/Woods/Thomas trio are gone.

Offensive Line: B

Weirdly, not a great performance from this group, to the point where I’d say this was their worst outing of the year. The line really struggled to generate rushing lanes for much of the game, with the individual brilliance of the running backs doing more work to churn out extra yards, but the few times they blocked well, they blocked REALLY well. That fourth-down touchdown run was a great example. Like, look at this:

I’m not here to judge your athletic prowess, but I’m fairly certain the average Mighty Bruin reader was gaining at least 10 yards on this run play simply due to the blocking.

I thought pass blocking was generally good, especially given that the pass rush is the best feature of Maryland’s defense, and the Bruins held that in check. Only giving up one sack and two tackles for loss is a pretty solid day, all things considered.

Overall: B+

UCLA’s lack of passing game hurts, but I’m also not going to overthink this one too hard. The offense essentially dared Maryland to hit their fastball for four quarters, and while they were able to handle it in the first quarter, the floodgates opened up in the second, and that was all she wrote. In a way, it’s a great sign that UCLA can simply overwhelm an opponent, especially on the road in poor conditions. It’s not perfect, but it is something that good teams do to bad teams.

Defense

Overall: A

So we’re all in agreement that the best way to get this defense going is to show them the Purdue film for an entire week beforehand, right?

Just so we’re aware, part of the success for the defense here was a return to form from the defensive coaching staff, who seemingly had Maryland’s offense scouted to such an extent that UCLA players appeared to know the Terrapins’ playbook better than their Maryland counterparts. Nothing says that more than Scooter Jackson’s pick-six.

Now, a lot of the blame here got put on Malik Washington for throwing what looks like one of the worst passes of the year, but in retrospect he looks mostly blameless and more blame should be put on the Maryland receivers. Maryland seemingly called a timing route, and Washington did what he was supposed to do, which was throw the ball quickly to the intended area (you’ll note that he has the ball for all of a second before he is in his throwing motion). The receivers apparently got the wrong call, and instead of running a shallow route (given where the ball was placed, I would assume some kind of tunnel screen was on call where the outside receiver was supposed to delay before immediately cutting inside while the slot receiver was supposed to run more of a go/rub route to take the two defenders out of the play), both players ran go routes up the field. UCLA, however, clearly understood what Maryland wanted to do and was already in position to blow up the play had it been run correctly. The end result is the easiest pick-six of Scooter Jackson’s career.

But beyond that, a lot of the individual defenders played really well. The standout might be Sahir West, who clearly relished his return to the DMV area with a highly disruptive game; while he ended up with only three tackles, two of them were tackles for loss, including his incredible sack of Malik Washington, where he discarded the tight end that was trying to guard him (who also happened to be the obvious outlet that Washington was supposed to throw to), closed the gap to Washington while denying him a passing lane, and then dragged down the athletic sophomore signal caller. Sammy Omosigho was his usual excellent self, while Jalen Woods was excellent in coverage.

The secondary in general had a great game against an ascendant quarterback, and while you can again grade on a curve here given the weather, you cannot deny that the secondary stepped up after a disastrous performance against Purdue. Four interceptions only tell part of the story, as Washington repeatedly was given small windows to throw the ball into, and the defenders themselves were on the right side of the aggression curve, being physical without being overt. One of the funnier parts is that teams have seemingly decided not to try challenging Roderick Pleasant, who basically spends entire days just getting exercise. As mentioned above, Scooter Jackson had a much-improved game, and the safety play from Ta’Shawn James and Malik Hartford was excellent. If this group can get Tao Johnson, a legitimate NFL draft pick, back at some point, they have the potential to be excellent.

Special Teams

Overall: A-

We’re dinging it a bit for the bobbled hold on the third PAT, but otherwise this was a nice return to form for the special teams unit. I feel like we saw too much of Curtis Gerrand based on how this game ultimately turned out, but he did average 46 yards on his four punts and put three of them inside the 20-yard line, so not a bad outing by any stretch. Not really thrilled with Wayne Knight’s lone kick return in this game (a rare blemish for him). Kick and punt coverage were both excellent.

Coaching

Offensive Gameplan: A-

Dean Kennedy deserves a lot of credit for not only making this a comfortable win from an offensive perspective, but for doing so while minimizing the risk to Nico Iamaleava by limiting his running opportunities in this game. Nico still took a few hits because he’s Nico and defenders are drawn to him like flies, but it was a rather light day in that regard.

That said, taking Nico out of the run game as a legitimate threat did limit the offense a bit, both by allowing Maryland to key in on the running backs more often and by removing more roll-out options in the passing game. It turned Nico into more of a pocket passer, which isn’t where he excels. The weather didn’t help, but I’m still of the opinion that moving Nico around helps him settle down in the passing game and unlocks things for both him and the offense.

That said, I also loved the increased direct snap usage in this game. It’s a nice changeup, and while it obviously can’t be an every-down thing, it does provide another new wrinkle that defenses have to prepare for.

Defensive Gameplan: A

Hey, remember that interception video I put up top? Yeah, that’s a textbook example of a scouting turnover, one caused because the defensive staff understood what the opponent wanted to do and coached the team to be able to read and react to that. That was the general story of this game, with UCLA looking extra prepared and taking the lessons of Purdue to heart. That’s all you can ask for at this stage, and it’s a great sign for the future.

Overall: A

I mean, what other grade was going to happen here?

A lot has been made of the record of West Coast teams heading east, especially for an early kickoff. Local kickoff time was 1:30 PM, but in Los Angeles that translated to a 10:30 AM kickoff, an ungodly hour that would have led to problems for past UCLA teams. Not for Bob Chesney and his squad, however. Learning lessons from his own travels between LA and Virginia during the initial hiring announcement (and maybe seeing what the Rams did during their Australia trip), Chesney took the team out to the DMV early so they could get acclimated to the time change, and the end result was a UCLA team that was fully prepared for the moment.

Getting a 51-point victory over anyone is impressive enough, but doing it on the road against a B1G opponent (even one as down bad as Maryland) is a whole other level. This was a statement win that Chesney and his team are not content with just being here, but have higher aspirations. In some ways, it is crazy that Coach Chesney became the first UCLA head coach since the 1940s to start their tenure 4-0, but given everything we’ve seen from him and this program up to this moment, it doesn’t feel like a surprise.

Trending

Trend: Transcendently Up

UCLA is one of the early surprises of the college football season, with plenty of pundits looking at UCLA’s remaining schedule and seeing a potential path to the College Football Playoffs. Combine that with Southern Cal continuing to fall in high-profile moments, and the door is open for UCLA to step forward as the major story in California college football. We’re entering uncharted territory here.

Final Composite

Offense grade: B+ (3.3)

Defense grade: A (4.0)

Special Teams grade: A- (3.7)

Coaching grade: A (4.0)

Trending: Up

Final grade for Maryland Terrapins: A- (3.76)

For reference, here are the grades from past games this year:

UC Berkeley Golden Bears: B+ (3.42)

San Diego State Aztecs: A- (3.54)

Purdue Boilermakers: C (2.21)

Ok, so after the entire review, this ended up as the highest-graded game of the season so far. Which makes sense! This is the closest to a complete game that we’ve gotten from the Bruins this season, and the team now enters the bye week with plenty of momentum.

At the same time, there was still meat left on the bones here, and that should excite every UCLA fan. There is potential for this team to be even better; now we see if Coach Chesney and his staff can get them there.

Go Bruins!

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