PASADENA — As UCLA kicked off against Arizona on Saturday, more than a few eyes in the Rose Bowl press box were also on the conclusion of the Oregon-Washington game in Eugene as the Huskies delivered a stunning blow to the Ducks’ College Football Playoff hopes.
In a few hours, Arizona would do the same to the Bruins.
UCLA (8-2, 5-2 in the Pac-12) was riding a dream season heading into Saturday — behind a prolific offense, a defense that bent but didn’t break and a clear path to the Pac-12 Championship Game. Win that game, and there could have been a trip to the College Football Playoff. Or at least a long-awaited return to the Rose Bowl Game itself.
For UCLA, what hurts as much as the 34-28 upset by Arizona (4-6, 2-5) itself was the timing of it. In the midst of an 8-1 season, with a top 10 ranking in the AP poll and its best start since 2005. Right after a team ahead of it in the rankings had lost. Right before USC week.
“We’ll pick our head up in December and see where we are, and see if that’s good enough,” coach Chip Kelly said.
What “good enough” means could be relative. UCLA, now ranked No. 16 in the AP poll, is still 8-2, a strong season by any standards. One more win would mark the best season in the Kelly era.
Yet next Saturday’s much-anticipated showdown against USC has lost a bit of shine. UCLA needs to win out and get some help to make the conference title game. All USC has to do is win — to both punch its ticket and end UCLA’s hopes. The Bruins were in control of their own destiny all season long, only for a 3-6 team to pull the chair out from under them.
“Collectively as a team, we just got to be better in all phases,” quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson said. “Cleaning up the little stuff — penalties, miscommunications on offense, mis-timings on defense. Just little things. We just got to clean it all up.”
The little things added up on Saturday.
The defense bent early and broke late. If UCLA was thinking ahead to the challenge of containing USC quarterback Caleb Williams next week, it didn’t need to look farther than at what Arizona’s Jayden de Laura was able to do against the Bruins’ defense. UCLA sacked de Laura three times but could have had more if not for the quarterback’s escapability.
De Laura entered the game leading the seventh-best passing offense in college football. But the mobile quarterback also used his feet to extend plays. Between his 315-yard passing performance and scrambling ability, de Laura responded to whatever UCLA threw at him.
“He scrambled in the middle, he scrambled on the edge, he scrambled on the right side, he scrambled on the left side,” Kelly said.
UCLA’s defense had a chance to salvage the game in the fourth quarter after Zach Charbonnet had just given the Bruins their first lead. Arizona was on the edge of the red zone until Gabriel Murphy sacked de Laura to put the Wildcats’ offense off schedule. But on third and 18, de Laura deftly avoided pressure and scrambled for 14 yards to set up a workable fourth down.
On the ensuing fourth-and -4 play from the UCLA 17-yard line, de Laura delivered a go-ahead touchdown pass to Tetairoa McMillan.
“Hats off to the quarterback,” defensive back Mo Osling III said. “He did a great job tonight, getting out of the pocket and just trying to extend drives, extend plays out there.”
The offense, too, wasn’t entirely in sync. Charbonnet was again dominant, with 181 yards rushing and three touchdowns, but the prolific playmaking that had carried UCLA to this point of the season was lacking.
When UCLA needed a first down to retake the lead late in the fourth, Charbonnet dropped a third-down pass and then Thompson-Robinson threw too high for Josiah Norwood on fourth down. When the Bruins had four chances at a last-gasp touchdown from inside the Arizona 30-yard line, none of Thompson-Robinson’s passes found paydirt.
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Saturday was the first time UCLA had scored fewer than 30 points in a game since October 2021 against Utah.
Some of the 44,320 fans at the Rose Bowl booed when UCLA went into the locker room at halftime down 21-14. By the end of the game, as Thompson Robinson’s last-second heave was out of the reach of Jake Bobo, “U of A” chants sounded from the Arizona cheering section.
The Rose Bowl will still likely be packed next week when USC visits. With both crosstown rivals ranked and a conference title bid on the line, the stakes will still be high. UCLA beat USC 62-33 in last season’s matchup, a prelude that may be overlooked by the fallout from what just happened on Saturday.
Osling hopes it will only fuel the Bruins to replicate a crosstown blowout.
“We’re going to have a little bit of a fire underneath our butts,” Osling said. “Go out there and just put it on display.”