UCLA Coaching Staff Finds New Way to Lose as Bruins Fall to Gophers, 21-17
The Bruins lost this game in the final two minutes of the first half.
If you don’t follow The Mighty Bruin on Twitter/X, you should. Why?
Because at half time, I knew that UCLA was going to lose this game by four points or less.
Here’s what I tweeted at halftime:
Ignoring the phone typo where I wrote “then” twice instead of “Then, they”, it doesn’t change the fact that that’s when UCLA lost this game tonight.
Let’s revisit what happened.
On third-and-two at the Minnesota 42, Golden Gopher quarterback Max Brosmer was sacked by UCLA’s Carson Schwesinger for a nine-yard loss. That made it fourth-and-11. When the play ended, there was about a minute and a half on the clock.
Rather than calling UCLA’s final timeout, DeShaun Foster sat on his hands. Eventually, Minnesota called a timeout to avoid a delay of game penalty.
The Gophers punted the ball away and UCLA took over on their own 37, but instead of getting the ball back with about 1:15 to go, the Bruins had just 45 seconds left.
In the first three plays of the series, Bruin quarterback Ethan Garbers put together what was arguably one of UCLA’s best drives of the season as the team moved 47 yards down to the Minnesota 16-yard line in just 30 seconds. Following two incompletions, the Bruins had just five seconds left. Of course, DeShaun Foster sent out Mateen Bhaghani to kick a 34-yard field goal, even though it was just third down.
Sure, the Bruins went into the locker room with a 10-0 lead, but if Foster had used his final timeout to prevent the Gophers from running 30 seconds off the clock, UCLA would have been able to run at least one more play, which could have resulted in either a first down or, better yet, a touchdown.
Foster’s mismanagement of the clock blew that opportunity.
Overall, the Bruins looked a lot better tonight against the weakest opponent they played since they beat Hawai’i.
Don’t get me wrong. They still showed an absolute inability to run the ball against the fourth-worst rush defense in the Big Ten.
But the offensive playcalling was, dare I say, inspired most of the night.
Perhaps, in lieu of running the ball, since UCLA clearly can’t do that, Eric Bienemy realized that the Bruins could use the short passing game instead.
It worked.
Drive after drive, Garbers dinked and dunked using short passes.
After Minnesota got the ball to start the game, the Bruin defense tackled the Gophers’ Darius Taylor for a loss of a yard on the first play from scrimmage. Minnesota punted following two incompletions by Max Brosmer.
The Bruins got the ball in good field position on their own 41-yard line. Garbers completed his first five passes to four different receivers including two to the long lost Logan Loya, the second of which moved the ball to the Minnesota 2-yard line. Following a Minnesota penalty, the Bruins were on the one-yard line and snapped it directly to Keegan Jones, who took it in for UCLA’s first touchdown.
That’s right. One drive and UCLA had scored a touchdown.
The rest of the first half consisted mostly of the teams punting back and forth. Though UCLA’s second drive, which had been looking as good as the first one, ended when Garber threw an interception to Minnesota linebacker Cory Lindenberg on the Gopher 14.
Four of the next five series ended with two punts by the Bruins and two by the Gophers. In between, Dragan Kesich missed a 43-yard field goal attempt, his only try of the night,, extending his poor kicking this season.
After the Bruins ran out of time to score a touchdown on their final drive of the half due to Foster’s clock mismanagement, UCLA took a 10-0 lead into the locker room.
UCLA got the ball to start the second half and, ironically, the first two series of the second half ended the same way that the first two series of the first half did. The team which got the ball to start the half went three-and-out and the team who didn’t start the half with the ball immediately drove down the field for a touchdown.
At times, it seemed like the Big Ten officials were calling phantom penalties. Sure enough, a questionable pass interference call on Jaylin Davies moved the Gophers half the distance to the goal line from the UCLA 30.
Again, UCLA went back to the air, which bit them again as Garbers was intercepted on the second play of the drive, which led to the second Minnesota touchdown of both the game and the second half. It gave the Gophers a 14-10 lead with 7:16 left in the third quarter.
On the Bruins’ first possession of the fourth quarter, they got the ball back on their own 11 following another Minnesota punt.
Garbers mixed up the plays well as UCLA drove 89 yards on just nine plays including a 42-yard touchdown pass for the Bruins’ second TD of the game.
It was just the second time this year that UCLA had scored two touchdowns in a game.
That put the Bruins up 17-14 with less than seven minutes to play.
Again, the UCLA defense held the Gophers as they punted from the Bruin 47 after seven plays and 28 yards. Mark Crawford pinned the Bruins at their own three-yard line with 2:43 left.
While UCLA was trying to run out the clock, PJ Fleck gave DeShaun Foster a lesson on effective clock management as the Gophers used all three of their timeouts on the drive en route to another Bruin punt. This one came on a fourth-and-one from UCLA’s 12.
That gave the Gophers the ball on their own 39-yard line with 2:16 left. Brosmer moved Minnesota 52 yards in just five plays and the Gophers had the ball on the Bruin nine-yard line before another UCLA penalty cut that distance in half.
Of course, the Bruins didn’t bother using a timeout until there was just 32 seconds left and the Gophers were on the four-yard line. Sure enough, Minnesota scored on the next play to take a 21-17 lead with just 27 seconds left.
Again, the Bruins moved the ball well. Garbers moved UCLA 28 yards on six plays to the Minnesota 49. With just seven seconds left, Garbers threw downfield for the end zone in desperation, but Koi Perich came away with Minnesota’s third interception of the day, ending UCLA’s last hope of winning this game.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, it’s worth noting that UCLA managed to gain only 36 yards rushing against the fourth-worst rush defense in the Big Ten Conference.
To be sure, the fact that Ethan Garbers managed to go 25 of 36 for 293 yards against the best pass defense in the conference was definitely one of the game’s bright spots.
But his three interceptions also illustrate why the UCLA coaching staff should not have been emphasizing the passing game as much as they did. I understand that they were using the short passing game almost in lieu of running the ball, but there comes a time when you have to suck it up and run it down your opponents’ throats and tonight was that time.
This was definitely the most winnable game the Bruins have played since they beat the Rainbow Warriors.
Unfortunately, the inexperience and/or stubbornness of a rookie head coach cost this team the victory because of the failure of DeShaun Foster to properly manage the clock at both the end of the first half as well as the end of the second half.
Instead of UCLA’s second win of the season, Bruin fans have their fifth data point as to why the DeShaun Foster experiment is likely to end sooner rather than later.
Go Bruins.
Thanks again for supporting The Mighty Bruin. Your paid subscriptions make this site possible. Questions, comments, story ideas, angry missives and more can be sent to @TheMightyBruin on Twitter.
Takeaways:
1. Justyn Martin should get the start at Rutgers on Saturday.
2. I was blown away that we had something like 43K in attendance. Probably 10K were Golden Gophers.
3. Nice that the start was earlier.
4. The bruins belong back in the PAC 12.
Time management could have been better but it was the penalties at crucial points of the game that assisted Minnesota in two scores. 105 yards given up versus 21 for Minnesota is a tough mountain to climb. Some of the penalties were hard to justify in my view but it is what it is.
I doubt starting Martin would have made a difference but starting Martin would be looking towards the future while Garbers will be gone next year and this year is a throw away year.