[CTcard]

The point I am trying to make here is that we didn't exactly correct all our deficiencies and win because of that. The OL played quite a bit better, KJ is more experienced and more decisive, AND Arizona played significantly worse than UCLA did.

I hope I'm not being overly pugnacious, but it seems to me that statement about not correcting all of our deficiencies is both obviously true to the point of being painfully obvious and overly dismissive of what was a pretty good performance - at least by the offense.
Your example is simply that football plays are close things. That's usually the case. It does point out the big difference, you cannot win without functional QB play. We had that vs Arizona, not vs UCLA.

Of your latter list, I'd agree with your second and third (though you downplay the difference between QB play in the two games), but I don't think the OL performed all that differently. What you saw was the difference functional QB play makes, and a lesser defensive front.

[CTcard]

The point I am trying to make here is that we didn't exactly correct all our deficiencies and win because of that. The OL played quite a bit better, KJ is more experienced and more decisive, AND Arizona played significantly worse than UCLA did.

I hope I'm not being overly pugnacious, but it seems to me that statement about not correcting all of our deficiencies is both obviously true to the point of being painfully obvious and overly dismissive of what was a pretty good performance - at least by the offense.
Your example is simply that football plays are close things. That's usually the case. It does point out the big difference, you cannot win without functional QB play. We had that vs Arizona, not vs UCLA.

Of your latter list, I'd agree with your second and third (though you downplay the difference between QB play in the two games), but I don't think the OL performed all that differently. What you saw was the difference functional QB play makes, and a lesser defensive front.