UCLA Football Preview: Can Bruin Run Game Be Effective Against a Tough Southern Cal Defense?
The Bruins will need to run the ball well and score early and often in order to win tomorrow's Crosstown Showdown.
After the Bruin offense was stymied by Arizona last weekend, it was disturbing to see UCLA quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson talking about how the Bruins want to score 60 points against Southern Cal this weekend because, if I were on the Trojan coaching staff, I would have put that on a bulletin board in the team locker room to motivate the defense. Frankly, a fifth-year senior quarterback should know better.
What makes it even worse is that the last time DTR went up against an Alex Grinch defense, the Bruins were held to just 14 points. Sure, that was back in 2019 when Lincoln Riley and Grinch were at Oklahoma.
Speaking of Grich, let’s look at his defense.
The Trojans will run a 4-2-5 defense and, despite the appearance of protecting against the pass, Southern Cal is actually tougher to run against than throw against. They have given up just 1415 yards on the ground, which is an average of 141.5 yards per game. That would seem to indicate that either they have faced teams which don’t run the ball as well as the Bruins do or Southern Cal has a really good run defense.
It could even be both, but the stats don’t lie.
Southern Cal has given up more than 200 yards rushing to only one team this season and that was Stanford who racked up 221 net rushing yards. That could force DTR to throw the ball more but, considering that the Trojans have sacked opposing QBs 32 times, it looks like they have an aggressive pass rush, too.
The Bruins match up better against the Southern Cal pass defense. The Trojans have given up 2527 yards through the air and 13 touchdowns while UCLA has gained 2640 yards passing with 22 touchdowns. With the yardage that close, it looks like the Bruins may be better throwing the ball more tomorrow than they have all season.
The problem with that was that when they had to do that last weekend, DTR was not nearly as accurate as he has been most of the season. He was just 26 for 39 with one touchdown.
Let’s look at the Southern Cal defensive personnel.
Defensive Line
The Trojans will start four upperclassmen on the defensive line. The line is anchored by defensive end Tuli Tuipulotu who leads Southern Cal with 11.5 sacks. He is also sixth on the team in tackles with 32.
Rush end Nick Figueroa is second with 4.5 sacks while tackle Tyrone Taleni is right behind him with 4.0 sacks. Stanley Ta'ufo'ou rounds out the line at the nose. He has 19 tackles including 4.5 TFLs.
Linebackers
Southern Cal relies on their two linebackers for making most of the tackles. Will linebacker Shane Lee leads the team with 56 tackles including 5.5 TFLs and 2.5 sacks. Expect Ralen Goforth, brother of former Bruin Randall Goforth, to see plenty of time behind Lee at Will. Goforth has made 30 tackles and picked off one pass.
Meanwhile, Mike linebacker Eric Gentry is third on the team with 52 tackles including 2.5 TFLs and a sack. Gentry is one of just three underclassmen who will start on the defensive side of the ball for Southern Cal.
Get used to hearing these two names called as both of them are responsible for one of every six tackles by the Trojan defense.
Secondary
Moving on to the secondary, we will see Southern Cal playing with a traditional nickel back as their base defense rather than having the Star role that some opponents employ.
Free safety Max Williams is second on the team in tackles with 55 including two TFLs and he has picked off two passes. He also has two pass breakups, a QB hurry and a forced fumble.
Sophomore Calen Bullock will get the start at strong safety and he leads the team in interceptions with four. He also has four pass breakups, which is second on the team, and 31 tackles, which is seventh-most on the team.
Redshirt senior Mekhi Blackmon is one of the Trojans’ best defenders. Not only is he fourth on the team in tackles with 41 but he also leads the team in pass breakups with nine. I would expect Blackmon to be covering Jake Bobo most of the day tomorrow.
The guy that DTR might want to pick on in the Southern Cal secondary is redshirt freshman Ceyair Wright. Overall, Wright’s got the worst stats of the starting defensive backs. He’s tied for just 12th in tackles with 19 and his only other stats to note are two pass breakups and just one interception. If UCLA has to throw, this is the guy they should be throwing towards.
Finally, we have Southern Cal’s nickel back. That will be sophomore Jaylin Smith. On one hand, Smith has the fifth most tackles on the team with 37 including a TFL. On the other hand, he’s even weaker in pass coverage than Wright due to the fact that he has just a single pass breakup and no interceptions. So, he’s another possible guy for DTR to be looking for prior to the snap.
Analysis
The Southern Cal defense concerns me. They match up well against the strength of the Bruins’ running game and, while they are weaker against the pass, so is UCLA. Last weekend, Dorian Thompson-Robinson’s accuracy plummeted as he completed just 26 of 39 pass attempts and he was particularly bad when the Bruins were trying to drive for the winning touchdown.
In order for the Bruins to win tomorrow, they need to effectively move the ball on the ground and get the ball into the end zone early and often. If they fall behind early, they may have trouble coming back against a good Trojan defense.
Go Bruins!!! Beat $c!!!
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USC's defense is trash. They gave up 37 points to Arizona and 35 to offensively inept Cal Berkeley. Last week should not be the measuring stick on what UCLA can do offensively.
USC's defense is mediocre, at best. Charbonnet will gallop through the front seven, unless Grinch changes things up with his schemes.. Stats are misleading.