UCLA Football Preview: Bruin Defense Needs to Stop Shedeur Sanders and Buff Air Attack
The Colorado quarterback is fourth in the nation in passing yards.
When Deion Sanders was hired as the head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes, he brought two of his sons, Shilo and Shedeur, with him. Shilo is a safety whom we will discuss more in our preview of the Colorado defense. Today, we will look at his younger brother Shedeur, who is the Buffs’ starting quarterback.
Before we look at Shedeur, let’s look at the Colorado offense as a whole.
Look for the Buffs to run an offense with a featured running back, three receivers and a tight end.
This season, Colorado has thrown the ball 57.3% of the time and they have run the ball just 42.6% of the time. That makes this offense one of, if not, the most pass-happy offenses that the Bruins have faced all season. They are averaging 346.14 passing yards per game to just 86.3 rushing yards per game.
While UCLA was able to shut down Washington State’s Cameron Ward at home three weeks ago, the Buffaloes are definitely going to challenge the Bruins’ pass defense. After all, Colorado did open the season by defeating last year’s CFP runner-up TCU and the Buffs are averaging 34.4 points per game. Only Oregon has held this offense to less than 27 points in a game. In fact, only the Ducks and Arizona State have held this offense to less than 36 points in a game.
So, the Bruin defense is going to have it’s hands full all evening long on Saturday.
Coach Prime’s roster management has led to this team being a basically brand new Buffalo team. With that in mind, let’s look at Colorado’s offensive personnel.
Quarterback
Shedeur Sanders comes to Colorado as the fourth-ranked quarterback in last year’s transfer portal, according to 247Sports. He has certainly proven why he was ranked so highly when transferring from Jacksonville State. He’s thrown for 21 touchdown passes while throwing just three interceptions so far. By comparsion, Dante Moore has thrown 10 touchdowns against seven interceptions while all of the Bruin quarterbacks, combined, have accounted for 13 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.
He’s completed 72.28% of his passes while throwing all but two of the Buffaloes’ 305 pass attempts. In other words, he throws an interception just a smidge under 1% of the time. Meanwhile, Dante Moore throws a pick on 4.1% of his pass attempts.
Shedeur’s passing stats are certainly impressive, but his rushing stats aren’t great. Sure, he’s gained 298 yards on the ground, but he’s also lost 321 yards, leaving him with -23 net rushing yards for the season. Of course, that includes the 17 times he’s been sacked for a loss of 90 yards.
He is capable of a breaking off a big run, though. His longest run of the season went for 38 yards, which makes it the biggest running play for anyone on the team.
And, he’s also scored three more touchdowns on the ground.
So, the Bruins can’t sleep on him as a runner.
Running Game
Sophomore Alton McCaskill is listed at the top of the Buffaloes’ offensive depth chart, but he has yet to see the type of action you would expect from a starting running back. He’s only played three games and has yet to carry more than six times in a game, but that’s due to the fact that he’s coming back slowly after tearing his ACL in April 2022 when he was with Houston.
The workhorses in the Colorado backfield have been sophomore Anthony Hankerson and freshman Dylan Edwards. These two guys have 56 and 54 carries, respectively, and they’ve netted 239 and 250 yards, respectively, as well. Each one has one rushing touchdown. The biggest difference between them may be the fact that Edwards was able to break of a 34-yard run for his longest of the season while Henderson’s longest was just 20 yards.
No other Buffalo has gained more than 60 net yards through the team’s seven games. So, don’t expect much in the way of real contributions from anyone lower on the depth chart.
Passing Game
Knowing that Colorado throws as much as they do, it should come as no surprise to learn that Shedeur Sanders will spread the ball around to a lot of different receivers. In fact, eight different Buffs have at least 124 receiving yards this season.
His favorite target, however, is grad transfer Xavier Weaver, who joins the team after playing at South Florida. The Nebraska game was Weaver’s coming out party as he had ten receptions for 170 yards and one of his four touchdowns this season. Overall, Weaver leads the team in catches, yards, average yards per catch and is tied for the lead in touchdowns with two other guys.
Jimmy Horn, Jr. is Sanders’ second favorite target. He has made 44 catches for 436 yards and four TDs while Jackson State transfer Travis Hunter is third on the team in receptions with 29 despite playing in only four games. Hunter is also third on the team in yards with 353 receiving yards. He’s scored two touchdowns.
Without a doubt, Edwards is the top target coming out of the backfield. His 23 catches for 243 yards and three touchdowns are the most impressive receiving stats for any of the running backs.
Tight end Michael Harrison is another favorite target for Shedeur. Harrison has caught 26 passes for 215 yards and he’s tied with Weaver and Hunter with four TD receptions.
Finally, Omarion Miller, Javon Antonio, and Tar'varish Dawson round out the top receivers with 205, 157 and 124 receiving yards, respectively.
Analysis
It’s clear that the Buffaloes like to throw the ball a lot and Sanders manages to spread it around to a lot of receivers to keep opposing defenses honest.
UCLA’s pass defense didn’t get torched against Oregon State, but they didn’t play as well as they could have, but it was the Beavers’ points off Moore’s turnovers which did the Bruins in that game.
Chip Kelly can say whatever he wants about how Moore’s three first half picks didn’t factor in to the decision to start Garbers last week. I don’t believe it and think that Garbers has earned another start based on his play last week.
That should minimize the Bruins’ interceptions as well as the Buffaloes’ starting field position which was fantastic for the Beavs.
All that said, I believe in the UCLA defense and I expect the Bruin secondary to step up against one of the best opposing quarterbacks they will see this year, at least until the Southern Cal game.
Go Bruins!!!
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