The Eye Test: UCLA Gets Talent-Gapped By Oregon

UCLA lacks in defensive talent, and the coaching got exposed by a better Oregon staff.

Sometimes I find pictures that are perfect images for the game in question, like this one of Devin Kirkwood attempting to make a tackle in the rain. (Photo credit: Shayne Smith/uclabruins.com)

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I wasn’t sure how I wanted to approach this article. Part of it is that Joe already touched on the biggest issue UCLA had in this game: they just don’t have the talent to keep up with a team like Oregon that takes its roster construction seriously by recruiting top-end players. The game was a back-and-forth affair, but Oregon was able to effortlessly get their points while UCLA had to scratch and claw just to get field goals. The Bruins had no margin for error because of that talent discrepency, and it showed on the field and in the final box score.

But I also went back to look at what I had written about last year’s Oregon game, and I ended up taking a sick pleasure at reading this part in particular:

If all you saw was the box score, you would assume this was a close, back-and-forth game played between two solid teams. In actuality, this was a game where the Oregon coaches made an adjustment that the UCLA coaches never reacted to, allowing the Ducks to race out to a large lead before a combination of hilariously-bad mistakes by the Ducks and exceptional quarterback play from Dorian Thompson-Robinson made the score closer than it should have been. For UCLA to lay that kind of egg on national television, in a game you HAD to win to prove the program was heading in the right direction, should be inexcusable.

There are some differences - for example, Oregon did not make mistakes this time, Dorian Thompson-Robinson was not as good as he was in that game (though still pretty good all things considered) and the final score was much bigger - but the underlying point was still the same. You could look at the box scores and get the impression that this was very much a back-and-forth game, but in reality things were over by the third quarter when UCLA showed it had no answer for Oregon’s offense. The Ducks made an adjustment, the Bruins never did.

Let’s dive into it.

Offense

Quarterback: B+

Running Back (Charbonnet Edition): A

UCLA had two players on offense that could realisitically hang with Oregon, and that was Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Zach Charbonnet. DTR was fine in this game; his 27-39 passing for 262 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception would represent one of the better days of his UCLA career. Unfortunately, he needed to be more than fine to cover the multitude of poor play and strategy that was employed in this game. In particular, this was the first game in a long time where Thompson-Robinson saw consistent pressure, and he was merely ok, going 11-20 for 83 yards and an interception on dropbacks when he was pressured. A lot of this had to do with the Oregon defense doing smart things and having clear talent advantages over the UCLA offensive line and receivers, but I think Dorian would be the first to tell you that he could have done more here.

Zach Charbonnet did everything asked of him, and then some, constantly getting extra yards when the play seemed dead. If there was anyone on this team that improved their draft stock with this game, it was Charbonnet, who was able to match the elite tandem that Oregon has by himself despite operating behind a worse offensive line.

Running Back (Everyone Else): D

Receivers: C+

Offensive Line: C

Overall: B-

As for everyone else, here’s where the talent gaps became prevalent.

First, UCLA does not have a backup running back. Well, they probably do, but the coaching staff has clearly decided to save TJ Harden’s redshirt year, so we’re stuck with Keegan Jones. Jones has some talent - he showed off the speed necessary to break off that touchdown pass in the first half - but his ability as a running back is extremely limited. The coaching staff clearly recognizes this to some extent, as he only got one carry all game, but it came at a pivotal time and led to a loss of yardage as Jones never recognized what the play was asking from him and instead ran into the back of his blockers.

The receivers were ok, but the talent disparity was again on display as they struggled to get open against the speedy Oregon secondary. UCLA gameplanned for this for some extent by trying to run a lot of their offense short and behind the line, but eventually Oregon reacted to this and UCLA began to struggle more in the pass game. Jake Bobo only saw two targets in the first half, and really only got going in the second half, which feels like poor planning regardless of what UCLA wanted to do.

Oregon really picked on the offensive line in a way no one else had been able to all season. Again, talent matters here, as the Ducks are full of high-end talent on their lines, but watching the transfer left tackle that you brought in to shore things up get beat with semi-regularity is not a good sign of this program’s chances against high-end competition going into the future.

Overall, the offensive grade is pretty simple. UCLA needed their most-talented guys to play outstanding, and their lesser guys to play above their skill level in order to compete. They got that from Charbonnet, and got a solid performance from Thompson-Robinson, but that was about it. It wouldn’t be nearly enough to overcome everything else UCLA did.

Defense

Overall: D-

I don’t want to break this down by running and passing defense because neither were very good. I also don’t want to talk about scheme here because that gets saved for the coaching segment. So I will use this to point out the talent gaps that existed here.

The defensive line was not very good, but this should have been expected. UCLA has one solid lineman in Laitatu Latu, a potentially good player with development in Jay Toia, and a bunch of ok but limited linemen around them. Gary Smith is a serviceable defensive tackle, but this game showed that he’s going to fade against better talent. Same with the Murphy twins, who can look good against poor offensive line play but struggle with well-coached lines. The depth of this group isn’t great either, but considering they’ve lost players to shore up the offensive line, that’s to be expected.

The linebacker group…woof. Just a real lack of talent and depth here, but that’s to be expected when you’re seeing a lot of snaps from a converted wide receiver and a transfer from Hawai’i. UCLA’s best linebacker this year has been JonJon Vaughns, but he really hasn’t looked to be at 100% in a few weeks now. Darius Muasau just looked completely overmatched against a team that wasn’t trotting out average Pac-12 talent, which in hindsight should have been expected.

If you split the secondary into safeties and cornerbacks, then I would give some actual positives to the safeties, who basically kept this game as close as it was. Mo Osling prevented a few touchdowns by himself, and Stephan Blaylock continued what has been his best season by far with solid play. That said, it’s probably not a good sign when your safeties are leading the team in tackles for a game, especially if Osling is accounting for almost 20% of the team tackles by himself.

The corners played worse, but not as bad as initially believed. Yes there were some coverage breakdowns, part of which could be attributed to the linebackers, but the UCLA corners generally stuck to their man. They just could not defend anything once the ball got there, but at least they were in the right position for once.

If you’re looking for silver linings to this defensive performance, they are unfortunately more long-term. That said, we should recognize that the current defensive coaching staff is (with one exception) all new to the position this year. Most of the guys on the roster were not recruited by this staff, nor were many of them developed by this staff. There have been positive developments among the group, but a game like this should help the new staff properly evaluate the current talent level and, theoretically, begin to recruit with that in mind. If you’re a defensive staffer, immediate playing time might be something you are selling higher-end recruits at this point.

Special Teams

Overall: C+

I don’t blame the return unit for not being prepared for an onside kick when it happened. That was just an excellent read of the situation by Oregon coach Dan Lanning in recognizing he was in a shootout and taking decisive action to steal a possession. Even if UCLA is prepared and prevents the onside, there’s no real harm here - sure, the Bruins would have great field position, but you’re already operating under the assumption that UCLA was going to move the ball anyway, so giving them an extra 30 yards isn’t the biggest problem in the world.

That said, Lanning recognized the moment in part by scouting UCLA and going off of tendencies, which speaks to good scouting on his part and bad self-scouting by UCLA. The Bruins’ own onside attempt was pretty poor, with the ball not traveling the required distance. I get that this is something the Bruins would rarely practice, but you do need to at least get the ball far enough for something to happen.

On a positive note, Nicholas Barr-Mira had a much-better outing this week, hitting all three of his kicks including a long of 47. He probably should not have had to kick a few of those.

Bill Connelly @ESPN_BillC

OREGON 45, UCLA 30 Even more of a break-of-serve game than I anticipated. (Also a "FGs are failures" game.)

Coaching

Offensive Gameplan: C-

If this game was in the rain as forecasts initially said could happen, the offensive gameplan starts to look a bit better. UCLA relied on its rushing attack and quick hits to the outside to limit the time the ball was in the air and get guys into space. It’s a smart strategy for a rainy day.

The problem is, the rain never really came, and UCLA waited too long to adjust for this. The Bruins failed to attack down the field until midway through the third, and by that point it was too late. I have fully come around this year on Chip Kelly as an offensive playcaller, but he routinely gets too clever for his own good. Avoiding throwing the ball to your best receiver (Jake Bobo) because you assume Oregon is going to spend a lot of resources defending him is one of those instances.

I’m also going to start taking away points in general for every instance of personnel mismanagement, and this game featured a specific one that has become something of a running theme. On a big 2nd down with one yard to go and the Bruins driving, the coaching staff subbed Keegan Jones in (!) and tried to give him the ball to pick up the short yardage. Jones is not the kind of running back who can grind out the small yards. Jones may never be the kind of running back who can grind out small yards. Why on earth do you keep putting him out there to fail?

Defensive Gameplan: F

I gave the defensive staff some credit for doing a better job with UCLA’s substandard talent up above, but that doesn’t excuse the poor showing here. It did truly look like the Bruins spent the bye week sitting around doing nothing, because guys were continually out of position or making a misplay that allowed Oregon to rattle off big yardage time and again. The Ducks had 19 BIG plays (runs of 10+ yards or passes of 15+ yards) and that number feels small for how effortlessly Oregon was able to gobble up yards.

In the Utah game, I said that the defensive staff seemed to be doing a much better job of self-scouting the talent they have. I would like to retract that statement, or at least amend it to stating the staff may have overestimated the ability of their front seven. The staff still seems to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the secondary, and they’re the unit that played the “best”. But I think this staff felt the defensive line was stronger than they really were, and that the linebackers were better at diagnosing plays than they actually are. You ended up with a defensive line that could not generate pressure by itself and linebackers that kept filling the wrong gaps. Bad, bad, bad.

Overall: D-

I keep thinking about a few different moments in this game - the onside kick, the decisions to kick field goals instead of going for touchdowns, the defensive play in general - and I end up with the belief that, even considering the talent gap in these two teams, UCLA was outcoached pretty thoroughly in this game. In last year’s season preview, I laid out my thoughts on former Oregon coach Mario Cristobal (tl;dr: great recruiter, bad in-game coach) and why UCLA had a chance in that game. Well, Cristobal is gone and in his place is Dan Lanning, a coach that actually seems to understand the ebb and flow of a football game. UCLA can no longer hope to simply out-scheme Oregon because they finally have a capable in-game coaching staff for the first time in years.

In last year’s Eye Test for the Oregon game, I proclaimed the end of Chip Kelly theory, as development and scheme was proven no match for superior talent. I was wrong. THIS game really should be the end of Chip Kelly’s theory, because Oregon now has the coaching to go along with their superior talent. That change turned a game that had been close in recent years into a laugher where UCLA never stood a chance.

Vibes

Vibe check: Laughing through the pain

I have a specific coping mechanism for the failures of my various sports teams, which is laughter. I don’t know why this is the case, but I think at some point watching the various failures of UCLA, the Lakers, the Chargers, the Angels, and the Ducks broke me, and so I no longer get angry at things that are out of my control. On top of that, the specific ways in which these teams, and UCLA in this particular game, failed are so comical in nature that you can’t help but to laugh at the situation. It’s like a perverse version of Chekov’s Gun where I know what the particular failure is going to be well in advance, and when it finally happens it ends up being funny. We knew the defense would be bad, and then they blew up at the exact worst time.

Final Composite

Offense grade: B- (2.7)

Defense grade: D- (0.7)

Special Teams grade: C+ (2.3)

Coaching grade: D- (0.7)

Vibe check: Laughing through the pain

Final grade for Oregon Ducks: C- (1.67)

A reminder of the previous grades:

Bowling Green Falcons: B- (2.76)

Alabama State Hornets: B+ (3.47)

South Alabama Jaguars: C (1.91)

Colorado Buffaloes: B+ (3.38)

Washington Huskies: A- (3.71)

Utah Utes: A- (3.70)

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UCLA has three games before they play Southern Cal. These three games are against teams I would charitably describe as “really really bad.” If the Bruins truly want to show they’ve turned a corner, these would be three games that they win comfortably. I guess it makes sense in a perverse way that this stretch is starting with the Baba Yaga themselves in Stanford.

Go Bruins.

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