UCLA Gets Pummelled by Washington, 48-14
Jedd Fisch makes his case for the Bruins to hire him to replace Foster.
Last night, UCLA played their final home game of the season, and possibly their final game ever, at the Rose Bowl, and the insanity that is Bruin football was back on full display again. It’s become as predictable as a bad slasher movie and its 17 sequels.
It didn’t completely start out that badly as the Bruin defense managed to stop Washingon’s first drive after just five plays, forcing a punt.
When UCLA got the ball for the first time, the offense actually moved the ball well, at least until it was fourth and four at the Washington 33-yard line. That’s when UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava’s pass, which was intended for Kwazi Gilmer was broken up by Washington’s Makell Esteen and the Bruins turned the ball over on downs.
The UCLA defense got a second stop on Washington’s second drive of the game and, eventually, forced another punt, but on the first play of the ensuing drive, Iamaleava threw the ball to Mikey Matthews, who proceeded to fumble the ball. Washington recovered, ending the drive very quickly.
While the Huskies took over on the Bruin 20, they were only able to gain two yards on the drive and they settled for a 36-yard field goal by Grady Gross.
You could have turned the game off at that point, or left the Rose Bowl, and it wouldn’t have mattered as the Bruins were unable to tie the game from that point forward.
How bad was second quarter for the Bruins? Well, their second quarter possessions looked like this: Punt-Fumble-Punt-Fumble-Punt. Meanwhile, the Huskies took advantages presented by UCLA and they scored 17 points in the second quarter to make it 20-0 by halftime. As if that’s not enough, the second fumble in the sequence above was on what looked to be like a field goal where holder Cash Peterman through the ball over his head with the intention for getting the ball to Mateen Bhaghani. The only problem was that Peterman threw what turned out to be a no-look pass over this head, which Washington safety Alex McLaughlin scooped up and ran back 59 yards for a touchdown.
It was more of the same in the second half. UCLA punted on both of their first two possessions while Washington added two more touchdowns. To make it even worse, Iamaleava exited the game when he was sacked on their second drive of the half. He sat out the remainder of the game as Luke Duncan tried to engineer some offense for the Bruins.
Finally, on their third possession of the half, the Bruins scored when Mikey Matthews caught a pass for a 37-yard touchdown, but it was too little, too late. As it turned out, that would be UCLA’s only offensive touchdown of the game, and it cut Washington’s lead to 34-7.
Of course, Washington responded with another touchdown to go up 41-7, and when UCLA got the ball back, they went three-and-out but things got interesting after the ball was fielded by Dezmen Roebuck. Kanye Clark hit Roebuck hard, forcing a fumble. Jamir Benjamin recovered for the Bruins on a scoop and score for a touchdown to make it 41-14, Huskies.
With the Bruins down by 27 with 11:19 left, you might have expected an onside kick from UCLA, and you would have been wrong. Instead, Mateen Bhaghani kicked off and it went into the end zone for a touchback. The Huskies then drove 75 yards in seven plays, taking off more than four minutes in the process and extending their lead to 48-14 on a 25-yard touchdown pass from Demond Wilson, Jr. to Decker DeGraaf.
While the two teams would each punt one last time, neither team was able to do anything with it, making the final score, 48-14, Huskies.
Overall, Iamaleava was terrible all game long. He finished just 16 for 26 and 69 yards passing. Jalen Berger led the Bruins with 26 yards rushing on six carries while Iamaleava carried five times for 16 yards, proving again, why the Bruins were unable to sustain long drives.
UCLA will conclude one of its worst seasons in school history next week when the Bruins travel across town to face Southern Cal. Kickoff is scheduled for 4:30 pm PT on NBC.
Go Bruins.
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The failed fake field goal was art and I won’t hear any argument to the contrary.
Nobody cares who UCLA suckers into being their next coach as long as Jelly 2.0 and Blockhead 2.0 are in charge. It's obvious Jarmond (aka Jelly 2.0) and Frenk (aka Blockhead 2.0) are incompetent and inept and as long as you have that sort of combination, there isn't any athletic program at UCLA worth a spit. I remember this past June when Frenk said, "I will be hands-on with UCLA athletics because of its importance to the university as a whole." If the football program is an example of his "hands-on" approach. I'll take a pass.