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UCLA-ASU: Four issues that can ruin Bruins' College Football Playoff shot
No. 11 UCLA has a showdown with No. 15 Arizona State this Thursday (10 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1) that will likely determine whether or not the Bruins will have a shot at winning the Pac-12 South and earning a spot in the College Football Playoff.
So far this season UCLA, a popular preseason playoff pick, has been relatively disappointing despite being 3-0.
The Bruins barely escaped Virginia in Week 1 after allowing five sacks and needing three defensive touchdowns to win. They beat Memphis by only seven points at home in Week 2 and then needed Jerry Neuheisel to save them against Texas in Week 3 after Brett Hundley exited the game with a left elbow injury.
With Hundley, one of the best quarterbacks in college football, in the driver’s seat, UCLA’s offense can be exceptional and will be the vehicle that drives them to the playoff -- if it doesn’t stall out.
Hundley can’t do it alone, though. Even a Heisman-caliber quarterback needs help.
Let’s break down several glaring issues that have shown up on game tape this season. If the Bruins don’t get them corrected, starting Thursday at Arizona State, they won’t stand a chance at accomplishing their preseason goals.
Issue No. 1: Way too many sacks
Since the start of the 2012 season, UCLA has allowed 100 sacks, which is third most among FBS teams over that time span, trailing only the 106 allowed by FIU and Miami (Ohio). Twelve of the Bruins’ sacks have come in 2014 at the hands of Virginia (5), Memphis (4) and Texas (3).
I spoke to FOX college football analyst Joel Klatt, who is calling Thursday’s game, and he pointed out UCLA’s offensive line has been battling through injuries and needs time to gel.
They were missing their leader -- All-Pac-12 caliber center Jake Brendel -- against Virginia. Starting tackle Malcolm Bunche, who transferred from Miami, is a first-year player in Noel Mazzone’s offense. Klatt noted that although Bunche was a graduate transfer, “He’s like a freshman in terms of his learning curve of the offense, and guards Scott Quessenberry and Alex Redmond and tackle Caleb Benenoch are all sophomores who had to play as freshmen and are still young and learning.”
Aside from lack of shared playing time and injury on their offensive line -- a theme not uncommon on other teams across the nation -- why is UCLA unable to protect their prized possession at QB? Here are a few reasons based on their game tape.
Issue No. 2: Missed sight-adjusts
What is sight-adjust? Unlike a “hot” route -- which is a built-in short, quick route that a quarterback knows he can use as an outlet if he sees a blitz that isn’t protected -- a sight-adjust is an adapted route that a receiver must execute on the fly if he sees a blitz happening.
For example, if the receiver was supposed to run a 20-yard curl but sees a corner blitzing at the snap of the ball -- or senses that he will -- he adjusts his route to a quick hitch or slant.
Here you can see the receiver (circled) saw the cornerback “peaking and creeping” prior to the snap and alerted Hundley of the potential sight-adjust (right arm):
In the next photo, you can see the sight-adjust was executed perfectly. The cornerback did indeed blitz, and both the receiver and Hundley took advantage of the offensive scheme’s built-in protection mechanism.
This play hit for a 20-yard gain as opposed to a sack or other negative play.
The issue with this concept is that both the receiver and the quarterback must see the blitz and execute the sight-adjustment. That has been a problem for UCLA.
Whether it has been the fault of the receiver or the quarterback or both, too often Hundley is seen getting hit or holding the ball too long.
In the next photo, Memphis had called a cornerback blitz again, this time to the other side. You can see the routes that the receivers ran on this play, including the sight-adjust the circled receiver ran when he saw the cornerback blitz at the snap of the ball.
On this play, however, Hundley did not see the cornerback blitz.
The cornerback had a clean shot at him, but the powerful Hundley shed the would-be tackler, eluding a sack before getting rid of the ball frantically on an incomplete pass. The ball should have gone quickly to the circled receiver:
The sight-adjust concept was created to get quarterbacks out of bad situations, but because the routes are not built-in and instead must be seen by both the quarterback and the receiver, the chance of error -- and disaster -- is high.
Issue No. 3: Poor running back pass protection
Too often in their first three games, Bruin running backs were beat in one-on-one pass blocking situations with blitzing linebackers.
The running backs especially struggle to hold up if they are assigned to block a defensive end or bigger linebackers.
Virginia, Memphis and Texas had success by walking a linebacker up on the edge, allowing him to rush from a stand-up position like the Cavaliers’ No. 13 here:
This is not good.
The linebacker’s hit on Hundley caused a fumble, which Virginia recovered.
Perhaps part of the reason Mazzone uses so many “scat” protection schemes -- choosing to quick-release running backs on a swing pass or drag route instead of keeping them in to block -- is because his running backs are not capable of consistent, trustworthy pass blocking. That needs to improve.
Issue No. 4: Penalties
Since 2012, UCLA has been the most penalized team in FBS with 234 flags. This issue has already created major problems for the Bruins’ offense this season. In the Virginia game alone, UCLA had seven penalties on third down.
Out of UCLA’s 18 third-down attempts in that game, the Bruins were in third-and-long (seven-plus yards) on 12 of them! On the year so far, UCLA has had 25 third-and-seven-plus plays, which is about half of their 51 total third downs.
Facing third-and-long situations is the last thing any offensive coordinator wants to deal with, but it’s especially true when your offensive scheme, like Mazzone’s at UCLA, makes its living off of short, quick passes and screens, with a majority of them coming behind the line of scrimmage.
Penalties, especially those that put UCLA’s offense in third-and-long situations, have been an Achilles heel for the Bruins this season and have significantly hurt their ability to keep offensive drives alive. After ranking second in the Pac-12 and 11th in FBS last season with a 49.2 percent third-down conversion rate, UCLA is 10th in the conference and 70th in the country in that category this season at 41.2 percent.
Despite these issues, the Bruins also have positive trends on offense.
For example: They’ve been efficient on first down, getting four-plus yards on 53.4 percent of those attempts this season, which ranks 29th in the country. Part of this is because Mazzone is quite balanced in his play-calling on first down. He loves to throw swing passes, screens, hitches and slants to get his playmakers in one-on-one situations, but on first down UCLA is running the ball 57 percent of the time.
It speaks to UCLA’s talent, and defensive ability, that it’s been able to get three wins to start the season despite the offense not playing anywhere near its capability. That’s a positive to take away from the Bruins.
But the reality is that no team can overcome this collection of issues on offense when it starts facing quality defenses in conference play. If the Bruins are to contend for a Pac-12 title and berth in the College Football Playoff, they need to clean these up starting against the Sun Devils. If they don’t, it will be a wasted opportunity with one of the nation’s top quarterback talents.
Coy Wire played college football at Stanford before a nine-year NFL career in Buffalo and Atlanta. He's currently a college football analyst for FOX Sports 1 and writes for FOXsports.com. Follow him on Twitter @CoyWire.
