PASADENA — Dorian Thompson-Robinson sat down in front of reporters after falling just short against USC in a game for the ages Saturday at the Rose Bowl and blamed himself for the loss.
The fifth-year quarterback threw for 309 yards and four touchdowns and ran for two more. But he threw three interceptions and had a fumble in UCLA’s 48-45 loss to USC — a loss that eliminated the Bruins from Pac-12 title contention.
“At the quarterback position, you can’t have three turnovers and win the game,” Thompson-Robinson said. “It’s just not acceptable.”
Thompson-Robinson, who likely played his final game at the Rose Bowl, went through the mishaps. He couldn’t get enough “juice” on the pass on one pick, with his hand taped up in the second half. His front foot slipped on another. All of those errors that were on him, he stressed.
“It’s on me, it’s not on them,” Thompson-Robinson said, referring to his teammates.
Except that in a game in which USC scored 48 points and recorded a season-high 648 yards of total offense behind quarterback Caleb Williams — who had a season-high 470 passing yards — the defense most definitely could have helped out a bit more than it did.
Certain plays on offense can be questioned, like Thompson-Robinson’s decision-making and coach Chip Kelly’s decision to ice USC kicker Denis Lynch before halftime, which backfired. Maybe all of those plays combined would have made up the difference.
“They made one more play than we did tonight,” Kelly said of the Trojans.
That includes the defense. The Bruins got a big defensive stop near the end, when Laiatu Latu sacked Williams to force a punt and give the offense a chance to win the game with more than two minutes to play.
But USC rattled off four straight touchdown drives to start the second half to take a two-score lead in the fourth quarter. UCLA answered with three straight touchdown drives.
As entertaining as the offensive barrage was, the Bruins were resigned to a similar theme that has haunted them in its losses — and even in some of their wins — this season: The defense dampening a prolific performance from Thompson-Robinson and the offense.
And as valiant an effort as the offense gave, it was not enough against a USC team with College Football Playoff aspirations.
Kelly explained how the defense allowed 648 yards of offense by changing the question: “How do I explain that we lost a three-point ballgame?”
“We played against as good a quarterback as I have faced in my college career, watching what Caleb did tonight,” Kelly said. “I would give Caleb a lot of credit.”
Kelly later expanded on Williams’ accuracy, his pocket presence and his ability to extend plays.
“It’s that combination — that rare dual-threat guy that can beat you with his legs and his arm,” Kelly said. “Sometimes guys are more of a runner, but he throws it as well as anybody I have seen.”
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UCLA, without defensive coordinator Bill McGovern due to an unspecified illness for the fourth straight game, did “everything” against Williams, according to Kelly. The Bruins blitzed, played zone, dropped defenders into coverage. They rushed two, three, four, six defenders at him. Didn’t matter.
Defensive back Stephan Blaylock said the secondary didn’t help out the defensive line enough when Williams began to scramble.
“Once he gets scrambling, we know we’ve got some of the best pass rushers in the nation, but we’ve got to help them,” Blaylock said.
The bright lights were on at the Rose Bowl on Saturday, with USC coach Lincoln Riley noting that college football in the West Coast and Los Angeles was “alive and well.”
But one team is on the upswing, headed to the Pac-12 title game and maybe the College Football Playoff, and the other is left wondering — with a defensive stop here, a better pass there — what could have been.