UCLA Football Preview: Wazzu Brings New Faces for Final Game Against the Bruins
There have been a lot of changes to the Cougars since UCLA came from behind to win in Pullman in 2019.
The last time that UCLA played the Washington State Cougars, the Bruins needed a 50-point second half and a 29-point fourth quarter to come back from 32 points down to win 67-63. That was way back in 2019 and a lot has changed since that game.
Washington State head coach Mike Leach left Pullman to become the head coach at Mississippi State. Of course, Leach passed away in mid-December last year.
That alone might be enough of a significant change for most programs, but Washington State hired former Hawai’i coach Nick Rolovich to replace Leach.
Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
In 2021, Rolovich requested an exemption to Washington's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for state employees for religious reasons. Rolovich was denied the exemption and was fired on October 18, 2021.
The Cougars’ defensive coordinator Jake Dickert was named as the team’s interim head coach and, eventually, the Cougs removed the interim term from his title.
Dickert appears to have Wazzu on an upward trajectory. In 2021, Dickert led Washington State to a 3-3 mark after he was named interim head coach. Last season, the Cougars finished the season with a 7-6 record overall and a loss in the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl. So far this season, Wazzu is 4-0.
Dickert is still in just his second full season as a head coach. Despite that, he is already on his third offensive coordinator. He inherited Brian Smith from Rolovich, but opted to replace him after the 2021 with Eric Morris. But Morris chose to take the head coaching job at the University of North Texas, which led to the hiring of current offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle.
Arbuckle may be one of the fastest rising coaches in college football. In 2020, Arbuckle was coaching high school football. He became an offensive quality control coach at Western Kentucky in 2021. He took over as the Hilltoppers co-offensive coordinator last season before being hired as the offensive coordinator of the Cougars in January. That’s a very quick rise to go from high school coach to Power Five offensive coordinator in just a few years. In fact, when he was hired, he became the youngest Power Five OC in the nation at age 27.
Under Arbuckle’s guidance last season, the Hilltoppers’ offense averaged for 497.3 ypg of total offense, which ranked sixth in the nation, while their 352.2 ypg in passing offense and 36.4 ppg ranked second and 15th in the nation, respectively.
Arbuckle has Washington State ranked fifth in the nation in total offense with 532.2 ypg, second in passing offense with 405.8 ypg and fifth in scoring with 45.8 ppg. So, while it may have been difficult for the Cougs to improve over what Arbuckle did last year with the Hilltoppers, they actually are better than Western Kentucky was last year.
If the Cougar offense has an Achilles heel, it’s the running game. Washington State is averaging just 126.5 ypg on the ground.
All of this combined means that the Bruin defense, which has only allowed one touchdown in each of UCLA’s first four games, will be tested come Saturday. In fact, it will be the defense’s toughest test yet, considering that the pass defense has been generally horrific under Chip Kelly and that’s where the Cougs excel.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, first year defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding has been having a tougher go of things than his offensive counterpart. The Cougar defense is 99th in the nation in passing yards allowed, 59th in rushing defense and 79th in total defense.
Schmedding joins Wazzu after spending the past two seasons at Auburn. Before that, he was the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Boise State and the defensive coordinator and safeties coach at Eastern Washington.
Special Teams
All of you Raider fans will certainly be interested in knowing if Wazzu kicker Dean Janikowski is related to former Raider kicker Sebastian Janikowski. He’s not. But he is a solid college kicker.
He’s made all 22 of his PAT tries this season and he’s also set a new career long for a field goal at 55 yards. Given the Cougs’ offensive proficiency this season, Janikowski has only been asked to try four field goals so far. His lone miss came against Oregon State from 51 yards.
Janikowski will probably not be asked to kickoff at all. Instead, those duties will go to senior Colton Theaker. All but three of Theaker’s 31 kickoffs have gone for touchbacks. It is worth noting that Theaker was required to make a tackle on one of those three. Also, opponents have already returned one kickoff for a touchdown. So, if UCLA does choose to return a kickoff, there’s a decent chance that it could go for big yardage.
One of the least used Cougars will be junior punter Nick Haberer. In Wazzu’s last two games, Haberer has only punted once. In fact, the Wisconsin game is the only game where Haberer punt more than 3 times. He has only punted for 50 yards or more once this season while two of his ten punts were touchbacks. Four of his punts have been fair caught and only three have landed inside the 20. Hopefully, the Bruin defense makes Haberer punt more often than any of their other games this season.
Look for Isaiah Hamilton to return any punts the Bruins kick to the Cougs. Hamilton took over the punt return duties after D.T. Sheffield chose to leave the team. Hamilton has returned just one punt this season for 12 yards.
Senior receiver Lincoln Victor will probably be returning most kickoffs. Of the six returns the Cougs have, Victor has returned three of those kickoffs. He’s averaging 19 yards per returns and his long is 24 yards. While Jaylen Jenkins shows up on the Wazzu depth chart as the other kick returner, he has yet to actually return a kick. Instead, Hamilton has one return for five yards, Billy Riviere has one for no yards, and Kyle Williams has one return for 36 yards. So, don’t be surprised to see any of these four guys out there with Victor when UCLA kicks off.
Go Bruins!!!
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