The Eye Test: Lincoln Riley Beats Chip Kelly at his Own Game

I think there's a saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Kazmeir Allen was gimpy but came up big when the moment called for it against Southern Cal. (Photo credit: @UCLAFootball)

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I sat at the Rose Bowl for the entirety of this game, got sick afterwards, and have spent the past few days trying to recover, so I’m going to apologize for my brevity through most of this. Just know I’m saving most of my actual thoughts here for after the season.

Short intro, (mostly) short Eye Test. Let’s get going.

Offense

Quarterback: C+

The duality of man. Dorian Thompson-Robinson is going to get a lot of blame for this loss, with his being responsible for all four turnovers (three of them interceptions), but he’s also one of the biggest reasons UCLA was even in the game offensively. Southern Cal clearly came into the game focused on trying to take away the UCLA run game, which put more pressure on Thompson-Robinson to deliver, and he mostly delivered. He generally did a fine job of scanning the field and being patient in the pocket, scrambling when he needed to to get positive yards. The interceptions had as much to do with Southern Cal doing a great scouting job and recognizing DTR and Chip Kelly’s tendencies in the two-minute drill than anything else (note that all the interceptions came with less that 2 minutes to go in a half).

I do want to give Thompson-Robinson credit for clearly playing while hurt. You could see he was struggling at times, and was getting beat up by a physical Southern Cal defense, yet he kept on fighting. It wasn’t enough for a multitude of reasons both in and out of his control, but you can’t question his fight.

Overall: B+

At the end of the day, the UCLA offense put up 45 points and 513 yards of offense. Against most teams, that should have been enough. Outside of Thompson-Robinson, it’s not like everyone else didn’t play well. You can quibble about minor things like the blocking of the offensive line in the second half, but at the end of the day the offense did what they were supposed to do. Could have been better, but they played as well as you could expect.

Defense

Overall: F

I mean, what did you expect?

Even getting past the scheme issues, which were numerous, UCLA was never really able to hang with the Trojan offense. It starts with the linebackers: they’re bad. I don’t mean they’re bad football players, by the way; more that they’re not even close to the level of athleticism required to compete at this level of competition. This shouldn’t be surprising - we’ve been harping on this all year, for example - but it already puts the defense at a huge disadvantage, especially if the scheme refuses to minimize their presence by having them be active in coverage. The secondary, specifically at cornerback, is either extremely young and lacking development or old and lacking talent. There isn’t a solid member of the group at the moment(really unsurprising since the only dependable member last year got run off with how the coaching staff treated him). And the defensive line lacks in depth, with a first string that grades out to “fine, but unassuming”.

All of that was never going to work against Southern Cal, which loves to take advantage of defensive weaknesses for big gains. The linebackers really should never be defending a slot receiver in space - the Trojans took advantage of that. The secondary can’t stick to receivers and has to play a soft zone just to keep things in front of them - the Trojans took advantage of that. The defensive line doesn’t generate consistent push and has poor lane discipline - the Trojans took advantage of that, and everything else. This has not been a good season for the defense even before defensive coordinator Bill McGovern left, and now it’s an open wound.

And just so we’re clear, none of this is the players’ fault. Like I said, these are all solid young men, but UCLA is trying to win at a high level, and the defensive talent is just nowhere close to where it needs to be to do so. In Year 5, that should be as clear a sign as any that we should be done with this.

Special Teams

Overall: B+

They didn’t cost UCLA the game, which is good, and in some respects kept UCLA in it, though only one of the missed kicks was actually tipped by the special teams unit. RJ Lopez can clearly kick the ball into the end zone on touchbacks, so I’m not sure why UCLA continues to risk returns by teams with better athletes.

Coaching

Defensive Gameplan: F

Just getting this done first. There probably was no gameplan that UCLA could have realistically employed to slow down the Trojan attack, but this still wasn’t it. Trojan receivers found the soft parts of the zone very easily - they had 12 pass plays of 15+ yards, which is insane - and that made Caleb Williams look amazing. The one play that stood out was the touchdown pass to Jordan Addison where he lined up at tailback and then ran a wheel route that the Bruins failed to cover. The fact that the Bruins lost awareness of Addison, last year’s Biletnikoff winner, just because he lined up at tailback just speaks to poor coaching.

If Clancy Pendergast is anywhere near this team next year, something has gone terribly wrong. Ditto Brian Norwood.

Offensive Gameplan (Outside of 2 minute before the half): A

Offensive Gameplan (2 minutes or less in the half): F

When UCLA ran their offense without worry about the time, it worked out well. The Bruins put up 45 points and 455 yards during these drives, with the lone turnover coming on a fumble. It’s not the best in the world, but on the 10 drives where this happened, UCLA only failed to score points on three of them for 4.5 points per drive. That’s pretty good!

The problem is those three drives where UCLA actually had to worry about the half.

UCLA had multiple timeouts. They had the entirety of their offense available to them to utilize in this situation, and instead Chip Kelly repeatedly called pass plays over the middle. Southern Cal DC Alex Grinch, a guy I do not find to be particularly good at his job, said in the postgame that they had scouted UCLA and saw they tend to throw over the middle when they need to score quickly, so they dropped back a defensive end and flooded the zone with defenders, throwing Thompson-Robinson off multiple times. It is absolutely painful that Chip Kelly and his staff could not see what the Trojans had seen on film, and played right into their hands. Incredible stuff that could have been avoided if they just ran the ball one time.

Overall: F

Let me be clear here: UCLA was in this game mostly because Southern Cal refused to put them away. The Trojans played really poorly in the 1st quarter, and even then their first two drives ended deep in UCLA territory. It basically became a situation where UCLA was going to struggle as soon as Southern Cal figured some things out, and by the 2nd quarter that was the case. UCLA never had an adaption to keep themselves ahead and found themselves playing catchup the entire rest of the way.

The loss can be pinned on a variety of factors, but the guy at the center of it is Chip Kelly. In the micro, Chip Kelly failed at time management multiple times. Thanks to the Trojans’ miscues, the Bruins found themselves up four with the ball, all of their timeouts, and 1:42 remaining. A touchdown wasn’t necessary in this situation, especially as the Bruins would open the second half with the ball. Not scoring at all wasn’t even a bad outcome, as long as Southern Cal did not get a chance to score either. The entirety of the playbook was open and they failed to run the ball once, instead passing the ball directly into an interception. Yet that didn’t hurt the Bruins because Southern Cal managed to miss their second field goal of the day. At this point, there was 43 seconds left in the game, and the odds of scoring points had gone down drastically. Common sense and analytics both would have said to kneel it out or at the very least run the ball and head to the half with the lead. Again, that’s not what UCLA did, and 30 seconds later a second interception was thrown. Kelly would make one more mistake before the half by calling a timeout before Southern Cal’s kicker was able to attempt his career long (which originally ended up well short), allowing him to gather himself and make the kick when it counted. The lead was now down to one.

Fast forward to the end of the game. UCLA had somehow managed a stop defensively, which meant they did not even need a touchdown to keep the game going. There was 2:27 and UCLA had all three timeouts, so again, the entirety of their playbook should have been open to them. Instead, it was again all pass plays, which again played right into the Trojan’s hands. Game. Set. Match.

UCLA fans had been sold on Chip Kelly as this great strategist, who would be able to out-coach his opponents despite talent gaps. We’ve seen this whole theory fail multiple times, but this was the first time that it failed so utterly. This was not a game that UCLA lost simply because of a talent disadvantage - though, let’s also be fair here: that talent advantage allowed Southern Cal to make plenty of mistakes. UCLA lost this game because the guy with the control of the wheel got worked by someone who understood what kind of game he was in and brought a scheme and game plan that countered Kelly’s plans. That is what is so distressing about this loss; not that the loss happened in the first place, but the way it went down.

Vibes

Vibe check: Something has to give, right?

UCLA fans clearly wanted the Bruins to win. The Rose Bowl was rocking; my friends and I have jokingly referred to the place as the Electric Factory all season, but this was the first time that it actually lived up to the billing. And they were treated to the same thing they’ve seen for years now: a game that UCLA could have, maybe even should have won, but threw away due to a variety of mistakes.

That’s why the vibes are as rancid as they are at the moment. You can state that it was a good football game - I personally believe it was a sloppy game made good just because of the drama surrounding it - but this was Year Five of the Chip Kelly era, the so-called Culmination Year. As of right now, that means 8-3 and out of the conference title race before the last weekend of the season. Something has to give at this point. Either Chip Kelly uses this success to move on, Martin Jarmond shows the foresight to move on, or everyone agrees to one more year where it becomes painfully obvious that Kelly is never going to get it done. Sure, Chip Kelly could use this loss to spur himself forward and start making the changes he so desperately needs to make, but after five years of this, it seems rather foolish to believe he would make a change.

P.S. for those wondering why Mick Cronin gets way more leeway than Chip Kelly, it’s because Cronin has won more (made a Final Four) and recruits at a high level. Kelly does none of that, so it becomes more and more impossible to see a path forward.

Final Composite

Offense grade: B+ (3.3)

Defense grade: F (0.0)

Special Teams grade: B+ (3.3)

Coaching grade: F (0.0)

Vibe check: Something has to give, right?

Final grade for Southern Cal Trojans: D+ (1.41)

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)

Oregon Ducks: C- (1.67)

Stanford Cardinal: B+ (3.20)

Arizona State Sun Devils: B+ (3.24)

Arizona Wildcats: D- (0.73)

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One more game today. Honestly after the last few weeks I’m just happy to be done with this.

Go Bruins.

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