Dorian Thompson-Robinson completed 18 of 23 for 299 yards and four touchdowns and Zach Charbonnet carried 22 times for 198 yards with one touchdown as the #18 UCLA Bruins defeated the #11 Utah Utes, 42-32, at the Rose Bowl this afternoon.

The Bruins never trailed in this game.

The game started off with the Bruins and the Utes trading punts on each of the teams’ first two drives. Those two UCLA drives were the only times the Bruins would punt in this game. When Utah got the ball back, they drove down to the Bruins’ five-yard line. But Darius Muasau intercepted a pass from Ute quarterback Cameron Rising which led to a seven play, 97-yard UCLA drive for the first score of the game. DTR finished the drive with a seven-yard touchdown run.

Following a Utah field goal, the Bruins moved 75 yards in 2:26 for their second touchdown when DTR found Jake Bobo for a seven-yard TD pass to give UCLA a 14-3 lead.

The Utes came back with an eight play, 84-yard drive to make it 14-10 with 3:14 to go in the half.

UCLA’s final drive of the first half saw Nicholas Barr-Mira miss a chip shot field goal attempt from the 21-yard line which doinked off the left upright. The Utes’ Jordan Noyes also missed a field goal at the end of the first half, his first missed field goal attempt of the season.

In the second half, the Bruin offense was a near-perfect machine, scoring on their first four drives of the half.

UCLA’s first three touchdowns of the second half were passes from DTR to Kam Brown for a 5-yard touchdown, to Jake Bobo for 10-yard TD, and to Logan Loya on a 70-yard touchdown pass. When Thompson-Robinson threw his fourth touchdown pass of the game, he became UCLA’s all-time leader for passing touchdowns.

The final Bruin touchdown followed a Cameron Rising fumble which was recovered by Jaylin Davies and returned 37 yards to the Utah one-yard line. Zach Charbonnet plunged in on the next play to put the Bruins up three scores, 42-25.

The only thing which kept the UCLA offense from a perfect second half was a late interception Thompson-Robinson threw which went for a Pick Six when Clark Phillips III stepped in front of a fourth-and-five pass and he scampered 80 yards to close the gap to the final score of 42-32.

Big Takeaways

There were three big takeaways from today’s game.

1. Touchdown Passes

By throwing four touchdown passes today, Thompson-Robinson threw twice as many touchdown passes today as the Utah defense had allowed in their first five games of the season.

2. Third Down Conversions

The second key stat was that UCLA converted on five of their nine 3rd downs. That’s a 55.56% conversion rate, nearly twice what the Ute defense had been allowing before today.

3. Back to Back Top 15 Wins

The final telling stat from the game is that UCLA has now beaten Top 15 teams in back-to-back games for the first time in the Chip Kelly era. It seems safe to say that this Bruin team appears to be for real.

The Bruins will close out the most brutal part of this year’s schedule following next week’s bye week when UCLA travels to face the Oregon Ducks in Eugene. Game time for the October 22nd contest has not yet been announced.

The only remaining question after today’s game is: “How high will UCLA climb in the Top 25 polls tomorrow?”

Go Bruins!!!

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