UCLA Football Plays a Good First Half Against LSU, Then Loses 34-17 With a Bad Second Half
The Bruin rushing attack continued to be non-existent in this game.
To paraphrase Charles Dickens: It was the best of halves. It was the worst of halves.
Ultimately, it was the Bruins’ inability to score in the second half that did the team in. UCLA looked like a real football team in the first half, but their failure to play a complete football game resulted in the team’s second loss under head coach DeShaun Foster.
If you saw LSU’s first drive of the game, you may have immediately feared that this game was going to be a blow out. That’s because the Tigers moved 75 yards on just six plays to score the first touchdown of the game on a 5-yard pass from Garrett Nussmeier to Zavion Thomas with 12:19 to go in the first quarter.
UCLA bounced right back with a touchdown drive of their own, moving 75 yards on eight plays, tying the game on a 20-yard pass from Ethan Garbers to Jack Pedersen.
On the Tigers’ second drive, the Bruin defense forced the Tigers to turn the ball over on downs on the UCLA 44-yard line.
Meanwhile, the Bruins’ second drive netted three points on a 47-yard field goal by Mateen Bhaghani, giving UCLA a 10-7 lead, which was their first lead over an opponent since the final minute of the Hawai’i game.
The lead didn’t last very long.
On LSU’s next possession, they ran just four plays—all pass plays—as Nussmeier dissected the Bruin defense including a 45-yard touchdown pass to Kyle Parker as the Tigers re-took the lead, 14-10.
After the teams exchanged punts on each of their next two possessions, UCLA was moving the ball well when Ethan Garbers fumbled as he was being sacked by Bradyn Swinson and LSU defensive end Sai'vion Jones landed on it, giving the ball back to the Tigers.
That turnover eventually led to a 22-yard field goal by Damian Ramos and LSU now led 17-10.
With 3:45 to go in the half, UCLA got the ball back on the 25 following a touchback. Garbers and company needed almost every second as UCLA moved down the field. With 50 seconds left, Garbers found Kwazi Gilmer open. While the pass was tipped by Gilmer and LSU’s Ashton Stamps, Gilmer kept his focus and caught the ball giving UCLA a first down on the LSU 3. While a holding call on LSU’s JK Johnson moved the ball to the one-yard line, a holding call on Rueben Unije moved the Bruins back to the LSU eleven with eight seconds to go. Following an incomplete pass intended for Moliki Matavao, Garbers found Logan Loya in the end zone with just two seconds left in the half and the game was tied 17-17 at the half.
Apparently, the word from TMB Special Correspondent Bono Coronado inside the stadium in Baton Rouge was that a lot of LSU fans left the game at halftime in the swelting Louisiana heat and humidity. If that could have stopped the Tiger offense, UCLA might have won the game.
He also noted that he was underwhelmed by the LSU experience and he said that Tennessee and Texas A&M were “waaaay better.”
In fact, if the game had ended at that point, UCLA fans may have gone home happy, if for no other reason than the fact that the team seemed to bounce back from last week’s disaster, but there was another half of football to be played.
And it wasn’t good.
The Bruins got the ball back to start the second half and promptly went three-and-out. Brody Richter’s punt gave the Tigers the ball on their own four-yard line.
The UCLA defense couldn’t stop Nussmeier or the LSU offense on their next drive as the Tigers moved nearly the entire length of the field and eventually scored on a 2-yard run by Josh Williams, capping a 14-play, 96-yard scoring drive to take a 24-17 lead.
UCLA’s next drive started off looking good. The Bruins got the ball on their own 25 and, six plays later, they were on the Tigers’ 22.
Then, the offense imploded.
A 15-yard clipping penalty made it 1st-and-20 from the LSU 37. After an eight-yard pass to Loya has UCLA moving in the right direction again, it proved to be temporary as Garbers was sacked for a loss of 23 and to make it worse, he fumbled the ball. Thankfully, Garrett DiGiorgio managed to recover the fumble but, now, it was 3rd-and-35 from the UCLA 48. The Bruins gained a measly 12 yards on their next play, forcing a punt from the LSU 40. Richter’s punt pinned the Tigers on their own eight.
It didn’t matter.
Once again, the Bruin defense collapsed, giving up an 11-play, 92-yard touchdown drive which ended with a 35-yard touchdown pass from Nussmeier to Caden Durham.
UCLA’s next possession ended when Garbers was intercepted by Jardin Gilbert on the Bruin 45. That turnover led to a 32-yard field goal by Damian Ramos, giving the Tigers a 34-17 lead with 5:48 to go.
The Bruins’ final drive of the game ended with a punt by Richter following three consecutive incompletions by Garbers and the Tigers just ran out the clock from there as the defense just couldn’t find a way to get off the field by stopping Nussmeier and LSU.
What made this game worse was the fact that the UCLA offense actually showed signs of life in the first half before completely flat-lining in the second. Of course, the running game is still in the coma it’s been in since the start of the season. UCLA gained no yard on five carries in the first quarter. They gained eight yards on eleven carries in the second and 13 yards on five carries in the third.
So, through three quarters, UCLA had gained a grand total of 21 yards on 21 carries, and the fourth quarter saw the Bruins lose seven of those yards on just one carry, finishing the game with 22 carries for ju st 14 yards. TJ Harden carried seven times for just 15 yards while Keegan Jones had three carries for 22 yards and Jalen Berger carried three times for 19 yards.It’s becoming abundantly clear that someone might need to put this offense down and call it a mercy killing.
At least, UCLA was able to move the ball through the air in the first half. Garbers finished the half completing 14 of 20 attempts for 198 yards. Unfortunately, he was just 8 of 16 in the second half for just 83 yards.
When you can’t move the ball on the ground and you start to fall behind, you have to go to the air and this offense isn’t going to be able to be successful until they can run the football first, however long that may be (if ever).
Geaux Bruins.
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I noticed the O ran a stretch play left that gained huge yards....and never ran it again!!? The D is just....terrible. Absolutely no pressure , no push, just an Absolutely comfortable unit for offenses to operate against. I thought the offense was improved in terms of Garbers and the receivers, but O line can't pass block, or generate push in between the tackles running plays. And this was them showing improvements!. The D needs a new plan, like immediately
I actually thought Bienemy came in with a good game plan, but our defense just let the offense down. They gave up multiple long drives of 90+ yards which kept LSU’s defense fresh for the entire second half to shut down our offense. Lots of positives to build on for the offense. On D maybe we need a new coordinator already