What was a forgettable day for the UCLA football team as a whole
was a career day for junior running back Chris Markey.
In the Bruins’ 26-16 victory over Rice on Saturday, Markey
rushed for a career-high 208 yards on 23 carries. Although he did
not score a touchdown, it was his legs, along with those of fellow
running back Kahlil Bell, that kept the Bruins from suffering a
monumental upset.
Markey and Bell combined for 310 of UCLA’s 401 yards of
total offense. Against a 3-3-5 defensive formation like that of the
Owls, where there are only three defenders at the line of
scrimmage, the running game generally has more success than the
passing game. On Saturday, that rule was evident, as the running
backs consistently got significant yardage per play. Even including
quarterback Ben Olson, who lost 33 yards on his 10 carries, the
rushers for UCLA had a 5.3 yards per carry average.
“They run a 3-3-5 so it’s going to be easy to run on
them,” offensive tackle Aleksey Lanis said. “And we
were really focused on the run this last week. It was embarrassing
last week.”
The embarrassment Lanis referred to is the meager 107 yards
rushing the Bruins managed last Saturday against Utah. Markey and
Bell combined for 70 yards, and the offensive line that was so good
pushing around the three linemen of Rice were much less effective
against the big run-stoppers of Utah.
“I put a lot of pressure on our running game to run the
football better,” coach Karl Dorrell said. “I was
really pleased with what Chris and Kahlil were able to accomplish.
We have put it all together now.”
Markey’s previous career high came last year against
Northwestern in the Sun Bowl, when he ran for 161 yards. Although
he was happy with the performance of the running game, he still
feels that there is work to be done for the offense.
“Offensively, we didn’t execute the way we know we
can execute,” Markey said. ” After last week, it was
very important to establish the run game. We never really got a
passing game going today.
“The run game was great. We made it a point today to come
out and establish. (The offensive linemen) wanted to establish the
run today more than everyone. They had the hard job; Kahlil and I
just had to hit the gaps.”
Markey actually suffered a bit of a tweaked knee on the first
drive of the game, which kept him from returning punts for the rest
of the game. But it didn’t slow him down in the rushing
game.
“Obviously, it didn’t affect the rest of my
game,” Markey said of the knee injury. “I told (coach
Dorrell) to have someone else do punt returns because of
it.”