PASADENA — UCLA’s offense played well enough to win last week against Oregon, but the defense didn’t come along for the ride.
Good teams — top 10 teams — note their mistakes, move onto the next opponent and get back to what made them good in the first place.
For the Bruins’ defense, clamping down on Stanford at the Rose Bowl on Saturday in a 38-13 win was exactly what they needed, as UCLA (7-1, 4-1 Pac-12) moved back into the top 10 in the AP poll on Sunday and kept its conference title hopes alive.
A week after allowing 545 yards of total offense to Bo Nix and the Ducks, UCLA limited Tanner McKee and the Cardinal to less than half that.
“I feel like we were walking in with a big chip on our shoulder,” linebacker Darius Muasau said. “We had to. We knew we had to show up. Our offense was keeping us in the game throughout the whole week last week. So, we knew we had to carry our weight for the team.”
Granted, Stanford (3-5, 1-5 in the Pac-12) didn’t exactly have the firepower of Oregon’s offense. McKee hadn’t thrown a touchdown pass in two games, and the Cardinal were without star wide receiver Michael Wilson and extremely thin at running back.
But McKee was still coming off a 33-of-57 performance against Arizona State last week — career highs in both completions and attempts. He was just 13-of-29 against UCLA for 115 yards.
The Bruins have won 44 straight games when they have held their opponent to fewer than 20 points.
In between highlight-reel runs by Zach Charbonnet, there were punts, dropped passes and turnovers by Stanford. UCLA recorded four sacks — from four different players — four quarterback hurries and six tackles for loss.
Stanford coach David Shaw credited the UCLA defense for winning the one-on-one battles in the pass rush.
“More than a few times, we didn’t get the protection that we needed,” Shaw said. “Twice, for sure, we had guys going down the middle with the opportunity to either score a touchdown or change field position. But we didn’t have time to make the throw.”
Muasau recorded a key first-quarter interception, snatching a pass from McKee over the middle at Stanford’s 23-yard line.
The Hawaii transfer said he knew the play Stanford was running ahead of time. On the bus ride to the Rose Bowl, he watched video of the Cardinal run a similar play last week. Mausau saw McKee try to get him to commit to the run before trying to throw a pass over him.
“But I was waiting for it,” Muasau said.
On the next play, Charbonnet sprinted up the middle untouched for a 23-yard touchdown to put the Bruins ahead 14-3.
As the middle linebacker, Muasau serves as the quarterback of the defense, calling out plays and organizing teammates. He said he has fit right in as a transfer, ranking second on the team with 52 tackles and notched his second interception of the season on Saturday.
Leading up to the game, Muasau said the defense emphasized fundamentals — tackling, stopping the run, keeping it simple.
“Last week, we were thinking too much, I would say,” Muasau said. “We just went back to the fundamentals, and that’s exactly what we did tonight.”
UCLA’s defense was without its coordinator, Bill McGovern, on Saturday. McGovern stayed home with an illness, but felt well enough to FaceTime the team after the game. In his place, defensive analyst Clancy Pendergast stepped into the booth and the coaching staff called plays by committee.
It was “just like nothing happened,” Muasau said of adjusting to McGovern’s absence.
Coach Chip Kelly said McGovern put in the game plan that the Bruins executed well on Saturday.
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“I thought we generated a pass rush against a really good quarterback,” Kelly said. “I thought we did a really good job in coverage against some really good receivers. Really proud of everyone involved on defense tonight.”
TOP 10 AGAIN
UCLA rounded out the three Pac-12 teams that made it into the top 10 of this week’s AP poll, coming in at No. 10. Oregon was the top-ranked school in the conference at No. 8, and USC was ranked No. 9.
Utah was No. 12, and Oregon State was the other ranked Pac-12 program in the top 25 at No. 24.
The first College Football Playoff rankings will be released on Tuesday.