We loom BIG in UCLA world view - Printable Version
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We loom BIG in UCLA world view - Redrum - 11-30-2014
Apparently, beating Stanford has taken on mythic benchmark significance in addition to the need for the number in the Win column. Basically, the Scout Bruin Report Online head writer asserts that despite all the success Mora has had changing the UCLA program, this year was the logical time for the Bruins to break through vs. 6-5 Stanford. And it failed for reasons he outlines. Some of it is inside-Bruin-baseball kind of stuff, but he notes that Stanford's offensive line personnel are still better when our offense faces off with their defense. And, when Stanford choked down on the Bruin offense, it was the Bruin staff's inability to adjust to exploit opportunities.  Almost any opponent post-mortem will always focus on how and why their team failed to win the winnable game. Pierson's gives Stanford its props and is pretty blunt about how the Bruins players and coaches got beaten.
http://ucla.scout.com/story/1486245-stanford-stands-in-the-way
Re: We loom BIG in UCLA world view - OutsiderFan - 11-30-2014
Several years ago, the same BRO tool (Pierson) wrote a column called "Ca.l has stolen UCLA's program" after they lost to UCB, in the halcyon days of Tedford. He suggested Marshawn Lynch and DeSean Jackson should have gone to UCLA, among his whine list.
Re: We loom BIG in UCLA world view - yvonne - 11-30-2014
UCLA was not taking players with the kinds of academic backgrounds of players Tedford was recruiting at that time. The Bruins may not have been able to recruit those players.
Re: We loom BIG in UCLA world view - CTcard - 11-30-2014
(11-30-2014, 11:28 AM)Redrum link Wrote:Pierson's gives Stanford its props and is pretty blunt about how the Bruins players and coaches got beaten.
He's blunt but I don't think he's particularly correct.
First of all, Stanford's biggest problem this year is committing disastrous mistakes at key moments in several games. This time Stanford still made a few blunders (some silly penalties), but made far fewer (no turnovers, no missed FGs, no snaps over the head of the wildcat guy, apparently no instances of half the line playing one scheme - half another) and those they did make were at less critical moments.
Stanford didn't outgain UCLA much more than they did U S C, and for that matter while Utah was a much slower, more defensive game, over four quarters we outgained Utah by a similar percentage (41%).
Next, while he sort of seemed to refer to this, the main way Stanford beat UCLA was by bludgeoning them on both lines. This wasn't quite as complete as last year, as UCLA was able to run the ball as we went to mostly nickel, but it was the dominant feature of the game.
The third was the perhaps random (hopefully not) occurence of Stanford's passing game clicking - Hogan was accurate, receivers ran the right routes and caught the ball, the line and backs picked up the UCLA rush and stunts. Even without much pressure on Hogan, that hasn't usually been the case. Stanford's had a great defense all year save one game, Stanford's run game has been coming along lately, but the pass game has been very hit or miss. It hit this time, and when it does that - and avoids the three stooges act near the red zone - this Stanford team is very good.
EDIT
Upon further reflection, I think Pierson was more accurate on the UCLA view of the game than I originally decided.
The biggest question for UCLA backers had to be "how come Stanford suddenly scored all the time against our defense when they couldn't otherwise?". While the answer seemed to be a combination of Hogan/passing game having their best performance of the year and cleaning up the mistakes - UCLA would want to ask how they could have forced more errors. The only item I really come up with as a game time strategy issue is stacking the box - either to stuff the run game or blitz Hogan into making mistakes. Hogan is somewhat Hundley-like in getting flustered under pressure, so maybe there would have been something to that. But it would have been risky.
The other question is why couldn't UCLA's good offense move the ball after the first series. The main answer is that Stanford's defense is good. To some extent, they could run because Stanford allowed it to stop the pass - but they still should have taken that which was given. The run game may have also calmed Hundley down a bit. If Stanford adjusted back, they could have gone back to the air game.
So - I guess to some extent I agree with Pierson's take on the UCLA view of the game.