UCLA football (4-0, 1-0 Pac-12) kicked off conference play with a blowout 45-17 victory over Colorado (0-4, 0-1) on the road Saturday. Senior staffer Jon Christon gives his five main takeaways from the blue and gold’s first Pac-12 contest of the season.
Tempo, tempo, tempo
It would be impossible to watch UCLA’s win over Colorado and not first notice the speed at which coach Chip Kelly and company executed the offense.
Like Kelly-coached teams of old, the Bruins time and again ran up to the line of scrimmage sans huddle to catch the opposing team off guard.
UCLA lost the time of possession battle by nearly 10 minutes, and its longest drive lasted only three minutes and 46 seconds. Generally, these numbers foreshadow a loss, but instead, it spelled just the opposite Saturday: an offense truly firing on all cylinders.
The tempo forced Colorado to drop back into man coverage, something the UCLA coaching staff was able to exploit primarily on the ground. Read-options were the name of the game, with redshirt senior quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson or senior running back Zach Charbonnet only needing to beat one man at the line of scrimmage to break free, as they often did.
Kelly hinted that the tempo style was only matchup specific for Colorado and that it won’t appear every week, but maybe it should, given how comfortable Thompson-Robinson and the offense looked running it against the Buffaloes.
Spreading the wealth
Thompson-Robinson looked as comfortable as he has all year Saturday.
Not only is this obvious in looking at his 19-of-23 passing numbers – with the 82.6% completion percentage the third highest in his career – but also when looking at who caught those passes.
A season-high 10 different receivers recorded a reception in Boulder, which is particularly good news for the progression of Thompson-Robinson. The quarterback has relied too heavily on a select handful of receivers the past few years, namely former wide receiver Kyle Philips and former tight end Greg Dulcich, which at times limited UCLA’s offense.
That was not the case Saturday, though. Redshirt senior wide receiver Jake Bobo, junior wide receiver Matt Sykes and redshirt junior wide receiver Kazmeir Allen led the way with four receptions apiece, while six other receivers linked up with Thompson-Robinson for at least one catch.
This could be another byproduct of the tempo, with the offense needing to cycle in fresh receivers to keep them from getting tired. Even still, you could see Thompson-Robinson read through his progressions and come to the right decision like clockwork.
It may limit UCLA’s ability to reproduce standout individual receiving seasons of old, but if this trend continues, it should raise UCLA’s – and Thompson-Robinson’s – ceiling tremendously.
Linebackers deep
In what was another somewhat lackluster defensive performance – Colorado did score a season-high 17 points after all – the linebackers continued to shine as playmakers for the blue and gold.
Fresh off his career performance a week ago, junior linebacker JonJon Vaughns impressed yet again. Vaughns matched his career high in tackles with seven while adding a pass breakup and a quarterback hurry.
Senior Darius Muasau also added to his impressive start for the blue and gold, setting the tone early with five stops on the first possession of the game – including one on a third-and-short that forced a Buffalo fourth down.
Senior Carl Jones Jr. followed up on his big fake field goal sack against South Alabama last week with another turnover, grabbing his first career interception in the third quarter.
But the belle of the ball was redshirt junior Laiatu Latu, who had his best game as a Bruin on Saturday. Latu had a career-high three sacks, including a strip sack in Buffalo territory that set up the Bruins’ fifth touchdown of the night, to give him the conference lead in sacks with five on the season.
While the interior line was struggling to produce consistent pressure – more on that later – Latu stepped up and made sure Colorado quarterback Owen McCown felt the heat from the outside.
It was again a generally unimpressive defensive performance from the Bruins on Saturday, but one thing remained clear: UCLA’s linebacker depth is not the problem many thought it would be entering the season.
Defensive line shallow
Three games in, UCLA’s defensive line had already had a season to forget.
And it potentially got worse Saturday.
The Bruins already lost redshirt senior Martin Andrus Jr. for the season last week, the same game in which junior Gary Smith III also got hurt. So when sophomore Jay Toia went down with an injury on the first possession of the game Saturday, the interior line depth became a serious red flag, if it wasn’t already before.
If Toia misses time, UCLA would be without three of its top four defensive tackles entering the toughest portion of its schedule to date.
But, healthy or not, this line has exhibited problems all year long.
UCLA should have dominated in the trenches in each of its first four games given the quality of its opponents. That just hasn’t happened, however, as the Bruins have been unable to generate consistent pressure on opposing quarterbacks from the interior so far this season.
There’s also a penalty problem, something that was apparent Saturday. Redshirt sophomore linebacker Gabriel Murphy was ejected for targeting early in the first quarter, and a third-down offsides from redshirt senior Jacob Sykes extended Colorado’s last drive of the first half and led to a Buffalo touchdown.
The defensive line didn’t tank the Bruins on Saturday, but penalties and ineffectiveness will put a thinning position group in a precarious position as conference play rolls on.
A (potentially) rude awakening
Everyone who looked at the Bruins’ schedule before the season penciled them in for a 4-0 start, and while that almost didn’t come to fruition, they have arrived at that mark with the win over the Buffaloes.
Now is where the fun begins.
UCLA will battle No. 15 Washington in a rare weeknight game Friday night. After three cupcakes and South Alabama to begin the campaign, the Huskies mark the Bruins’ first real test of the season. In fact, Washington will be the best school UCLA has faced since before it began its current seven-game winning streak.
Suffice it to say, it’s still to be determined if the Bruins are up to such a challenge.
While its first 4-0 start since 2015 may suggest otherwise, UCLA has looked far from perfect this campaign.
The blue and gold trailed by double digits against Bowling Green, probably would have lost to South Alabama if not for some questionable decision-making from the Jaguars’ coach, and allowed an offensively challenged Colorado team to have its highest-scoring game of the season.
This is likely all nitpicky, but UCLA will have zero margin of error Friday. Despite the challenges of previous years, Washington is legitimately good this season and boasts one of the most explosive offenses in the entire conference.
If the Bruins aren’t careful, the joy of the perfect start will be quickly erased – and it could get ugly in a hurry.
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