UCLA Recap

I have been traveling so I have not had time to rewatch the UCLA game. However, here are my thoughts based on being there and some statistical analysis.

First, I think everyone has agreed that the playcalling has been a little conservative. Jeff Tedford has somewhat defended his play calling, confirming that the loss was an execution loss, not a strategy loss.

Similarly Gregory indicated that the defense was not going to make changes, that the defense was fine, that we needed to be better at what we do, not change what we do. In fact, he kinda called out his guys, saying that they needed to play with more passion. I agree. They certainly did not look like they cared they were losing last week. Sometimes that is good - it is called confidence. But sometimes that is bad and indicates a lack of caring. I guess winning and losing sort of defines whether it is good or bad.

Clearly the game is a different outcome with no turnovers for the Bears. Once again, the key blunder of the game was a boneheaded play by the QB which changed the outcome and lead directly to the defeat. When you rely on 20 year old players to take you to the National Championship game, you are going to be bitten quite often. And JT does rely on his QB for a lot of the offense to work correctly. I think that is a blessing and a curse with him. He is a former QB who builds his offense around the current QB. Nate is a passer, and therefore he has build the offense around a traditional run-run-pass format which does not always work. It is a bit old fashioned, and good traditional defenses can sometimes stop you.

We do have tremendous other talents that seem to be going to waste. At the beginning of the game, JT would put in Best to go outside, and Forsett to go inside. It seemed like JT was really concerned about running, and wanted to ensure that we could get outside quickly, so he went with our fastest player. I think that was a good move. But we went away from that after the first quarter (Best did fumble). But probably a better move would have been to have a lot more passing more consistenly thoughout the day.

For example, the second drive, where we went straight down the field was almost exclusively pass plays. So he was trying to set up the run based on his passing. But passing works when you do it consistently. For example, you can not only pass on 3rd down. You only make 2 of three 3rd downs when your passer is getting 67%, like Nate did on the day. You need to pass on first and second and third down to move the chains. And, after the first score, we did not do that. JT felt he had loosened up the defense, so he was going back to establish the run.

The thing about it is, when you are effective passing, it moves the backers down field, it opens up holes. If you get 8 yards on a first down pass play, you have a lot more options on second down. By we more often than not were in second and 8. Running on second and eight is not a recipe for a successful third down. During the game, when the Bear passed on first down, they scored (or else missed the field goal). The times when the Bears consistenly ran on first down, we failed to connect.

This held true even when the pass on first down was incomplete. When the Bears were in a passing rhythm, they scored. When they were beholden to running the ball, they failed to score.

Well, guess what - UCLA has a good defensive line. We knew this. It was going to be a problem running against them. But if they are pass rushing every down during the first quarter, they are going to get tired. They aare struggling to go uphill, as opposed to just holding thier ground. So when we need to run out the clock in the third quarter, they are tired, and our offensive line, who has just been trying to hold them back all game, now has some energy to push them down the field against a tired defensive line. That is how we win games in Tedford's tenure. And that is what we did NOT do on Saturday.


That being said, we were still only ten yard away from winning the game on an easy field goal. JT put Nate in a terrible position by only putting two wideouts with 4 DBs on them on the left side on third and 10 at the 34. We needed yards. So Nate had to force the pass. What Nate should have done is called timeout and gone to the side to talk about it. It was a terrible set - we had 8 guys in to block the pass rush, and only two out left. They had 7 guys rushing and 4 out on the wideouts. So it was a recipe for disaster, and disaster struck.

There is no reason not to call a timeout in that situation. That should have been seen by the coaches and they should have called it. Oh well.

I am not going to comment on the defense. It is not pretty to watch, and it gives up a lot of yards. But, frankly -they only gave up 23 points on the day. We should have won that game if the offense was working properly. It was not, and so we lost.

We still have a lot to play for and I think we will be in the hunt at the end of the year for the Pac 10 Championship. Lets see how this weekend goes.

GO BEARS!!!