UCLA's Offense Explodes to Secure First-Ever B1G Win Over Rutgers, 35-32

Ethan Garbers's career day helped the Bruins overcome a late Rutgers rally to secure the victory.

Ethan Garbers had a career game to lead the Bruins to victory. (Photo credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images/uclabruins.com)

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It feels a bit ironic that UCLA plays Rutgers for the first time in history and noted New Jersey native Joe isn’t here to write the postgame.

Yet I can’t say I’m sad about drawing the assignment, because the UCLA Bruins put together their most complete game of the season en route to a 35-32 victory over the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, notching the program’s first-ever Big Ten Conference victory in the process.

The star of this game was, very clearly, Ethan Garbers. Garbers put up a career day against the Scarlet Knight defense, finishing with career-highs in passing yards (383), rushing yards (48), and passing touchdowns (4). For maybe the first time all season, Garbers was given a pretty clean pocket for most of the afternoon and took advantage of it, throwing mostly accurate passes to different areas of the field and picking apart the Rutgers secondary. Moliki Matavao was able to do a lot of damage over the middle, finishing with a team-high six catches for 104 yards, but Garbers in general did a good job of spreading the ball around, as eight different UCLA players finished with at least one catch. Garbers also appears to be as close to healthy as he has been in weeks, which was most obvious on his touchdown run as Garbers showed off his athleticism by breaking a tackle and scampering 49 yards up the sideline, outrunning defenders along the way. He still had some mistakes, especially late in the game when he did not recognize the pressure and fumbled the ball to give Rutgers some late life, but this was about as perfect of a game as you could expect from him.

Credit to Eric Bieniemy for finally recognizing what his offense can and cannot do well and adjusting accordingly. UCLA had a heavy focus on quick passes, throwing to the underneath guy and limiting the amount of time Garbers had to hold the ball in the pocket, and that allowed the offense to continually stay ahead of the sticks. The Bruins also limited their rushing attempts in the first half (only 13 runs compared to 25 passes), which allowed the offense to get in a rhythm. The offense was less efficient in the second half, which you can blame on an increase in runs as the Bruins tried to manage the clock and on some Rutgers adjustments, but the 478 yards are by far UCLA’s highest of the season, and the hope has to be that this is the moment where things click for Bieniemy and the offense.

(If we’re going to be fair, you also have to consider just how wounded Rutgers was going into this game. The Scarlet Knights were down at least five starters on defense and were not deep enough to replace them effectively, which really helped the UCLA offensive line establish a rhythm. That unfamiliarity also led to a lot of blown assignments such as on Keegan Jones’s touchdown catch after leaking out of the backfield. This is by far the worst defense UCLA will face all year, so we’ll see how sustainable this is in the coming weeks.)

The UCLA defense was not nearly as good as they’ve been in recent weeks, but they were plenty serviceable throughout the game. The Bruins held Rutgers to 10 points on 172 yards in the first half and was getting a few big stops throughout. In the most recent Eye Test, we were discussing in the comments how the defense has struggled on third down, but in this game the Bruins were able to hold Rutgers to a measly three for eight on third down, getting enough stops and forcing a few punts and field goal attempts instead of allowing touchdowns.

Late in the game, it did appear that UCLA was doing its best to throw the game away. The UCLA offense started to get too conservative in the 4th quarter while the defense shifted into more of a shell to try and keep everything in front of them and chew up the clock. I hate when teams do this, especially this UCLA team that has not learned how to win games, and it showed as Rutgers started their comeback. At one critical point, the Bruins took a delay of game penalty on a 4th down, turning a 50-yard field goal attempt into a 55-yarder, which Mateen Bhaghani ended up missing (you can’t blame him for this one, as he got the leg for it but just hooked it left). This delay of game mirrored an earlier one on a PAT and speaks to how this program still misses on so many of the little things. The defense similarly committed a few costly penalties late after playing a pretty clean game for most of the day, which allowed Rutgers to get in position to score a touchdown, cutting the lead to three.

But the Bruins made just enough plays to win this game. On the ensuing onside kick attempt, Gary Grant caught the ball and would have pulled a Brandon Breazell (old heads know) if not for a fair catch called by Logan Loya. The Bruins were able to kneel the game out for their first Big Ten win.

This victory could not have come at a better time for the Bruins. They’ll go into the bye week riding some momentum and will have plenty of time to prepare for a Nebraska team that will be coming into that game after likely suffering two big losses in a row (the Cornhuskers lost to Indiana 56-7 today and play Ohio State next week). If ever there was a time for UCLA to try and salvage their season, this would be it.

Go Bruins!

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