UCLA Bruins Top Coastal Carolina, 27-13
Freshman QB Dante Moore played a solid first game and made his case to start moving forward.
The UCLA Bruins defeated the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers tonight by a score of 27-13. While the game certainly wasn’t a blowout, it was never really in doubt.
Contrary to Chip Kelly’s Monday pronouncement, only Ethan Garbers and Dante Moore saw action at quarterback. Transfer QB Collin Schlee did not play.
Garbers did start the game, as Kelly indicated he would and he led the Bruins down the field very quickly. In fact, UCLA’s first drive lasted just 2:04.
After Garbers started the game with an incompletion, Carson Steele carried on three consecutive plays and moved the ball 41 yards on runs of 10 yards, 7 yards and 24 yards, respectively. That gave UCLA the ball on the Chants’ 37-yard line. Garbers then found Logan Loya for 16 yards. Following an incompletion, he found Carsten Ryan for the Bruins’ first touchdown of the season.
When Coastal Carolina got the ball back, they moved the ball well, going 49 yards in just under five minutes. But the drive stalled and head coach Tim Beck opted for a 33-yard field goal attempt, which was no good.
UCLA proceeded to drive all the way down to the CCU 8-yard line, but when Garbers threw into the end zone, it was picked off by Clayton Isabell.
That led to a 76-yard drive by the Chants, which stalled on the Bruin 5-yard line following two incomplete passes to former Bruin tight end Matt Alaimo. A 22-yard field goal was good and UCLA’s lead was cut to 7-3.
After the teams traded punts, freshman Dante Moore entered the game for UCLA. Moore moved the offense 61 yards on just six plays in just over two and a half minutes. The big play of the drive came on a 39-yard pass from Moore to J. Michael Sturdivant which gave the Bruins a first down on the CCU 18-yard line. Three plays later, Moore found Carson Steele on a 14-yard touchdown pass to increase UCLA’s lead to 14-3.
On Coastal Carolina’s final drive of the first half, Grayson McCall moved the Chants down to the UCLA 13 with 50 second left in the half. After two incomplete passes, Gabriel Murphy dropped McCall for an 11-yard loss that gave CCU a 4th and 21 from the Bruin 24. Beck let the clock wind down to just 3 seconds and kicked the field goal, content with a halftime score of 14-6, UCLA.
The Chanticleers got the ball to start the second half and, again, they showed they could move the ball against the Bruin defense. They marched 75 yards in just under five minutes as McCall found Sam Pinckney for a 9-yard touchdown pass.
You would have thought that Coastal Carolina would have gone for two to tie the game up, but instead, Beck opted to go for one and the Bruins held onto a one-point lead, 14-13.
On the Bruins’ first drive of the second half, Ethan Garbers was back out at quarterback for UCLA. On the fourth play of the drive, he threw his second pick of the game to Clayton Isabell.
But Coastal Carolina couldn’t capitalize on the miscue. That’s because Jaylin Davies intercepted a pass on the Bruin 15 to end this threat by the Chants.
Following a three and out by UCLA, CCU drove the ball down to the Bruin 38 and, facing a fourth and two, Beck opted to send out Liam Gray for a 55-yard field goal attempt which he missed.
Chip Kelly sent Dante Moore in for this drive and Moore made his best case to be the starter next week by immediately throwing a pass to Sturdivant, who took it to the house for a 62-yard touchdown. That gave UCLA a 21-13 lead and it started to look like this game was over.
The Chanticleers had several more chances to get back into the game, but with just over eight minutes to go, McCall threw his second interception of the night matching his interception total for all of last season.
That led to a 33-yard field goal by RJ Lopez which gave UCLA a 24-13 lead and, after CCU turned the ball over on downs, Lopez added another insurance field, this time from 47 yards out to make it 27-13, UCLA and that proved to be the final score.
After tonight’s game, it will be interesting to see what Chip Kelly chooses to do for the San Diego State game next week. Will he stick with Ethan Garbers as the starter or will he hand the keys over to Dante Moore? Will Collin Schlee see any time next week after not playing tonight, despite Kelly’s assurance on Monday that all three QBs would play?
Overall, the defense looked…passable. They would have been a whole lot more effective if our defenders could find a way to avoid jumping the snap and getting called for being offsides. Bruin defenders were called for being offsides four times during the course of this game and two of those penalties came on Chanticleer scoring drives. It’s hard to say that those penalties led to the 10 points CCU scored on those drives, though they certainly made the field shorter each time. To be sure, these could be considered “aggressive” penalties by the Bruins, but the defense must be more disciplined moving forward.
The defense did manage to hold Coastal Carolina to less than 350 yards total and McCall finished the game going 27 of 42 for 271 yards with just one touchdown and two interceptions. Given the fact that he threw just two picks all of last season, that’s a big win for the Bruin defense and it’s something to build on in the weeks ahead.
Go Bruins!!!
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To say this game was never in doubt is, in my opinion, not accurate. There were large portions of the game where CCU moved effectively against our corners. Mistakes and timely sacks by our D-line kept them out but at 14-13 early in the 2nd half and our offense sputtering, the game was highly in doubt. The TD to JMS from Moore provided just enough breathing room before finally putting the game away in the 4th. Glad for the win but as always "things to clean up."
I am currently overseas, Ireland in fact, visiting a buddy from my grad school days. Because of our friendship, he is also a bruin fan. We watched the highlights on YouTube and read the comments posted. UCLA should win this game hands down and we did, warts and all. All your comments were precisely what I would have made were I watching the game live. Kelly is kelly. I have a hunch this season may remain similar to previous ones. Time will tell. Because I have been rather vocal against retaining him, which it did happen, my words drew the ire of his defenders reminiscent of the Alford era. Hence, I want to remain optimistic that perhaps this year will indeed be positively different. UCLA will transition into Big Ten competitions in high note.