UCLA-Wazzu report card
Here is my report card from Saturday's game. Feel free to cast your own vote, as well:
UCLA 28, Washington State 3
Overall grade: B
Quarterbacks
Kevin Craft continues to minimize mistakes, which is his most important job. Throwing for 225 yards and 2 TDs helps.
Grade: B
Running backs
Most of the yards were hard-fought, but more explosiveness is needed to keep pressure off Craft.
Grade: C
Receivers
Terrence Austin, Taylor Embree and TE Ryan Moya separated from the rest of the pack, and are reliable options.
Grade: B
Offensive line
No sacks is nice, but 37 rushes for 100 yards won't cut it, even with Wazzu crowding the line of scrimmage.
Grade: C-
Defensive line
DTs Brian Harwell and Brian Price were a main reason Wazzu ran 25 times, and netted 26 yards.
Grade: A
Linebackers
Five Bruins had more tackles than any of the linebackers, which in this instance was ok. Few coverage issues.
Grade: B
Secondary
Still some missed tackles and coverage issues, but quite amazing how much better they look with a QB is pressured.
Grade: B
Special teams
P Aaron Perez downed three inside the 20 and Wazzu had a 46-yard kickoff return. Nothing special, nothing awful.
Grade: C
Coaching
UCLA beat an inferior opponent soundly, and there was no panic despite a 0-0 first quarter. So, kudos to the coaches.
Grade: B
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About Inside UCLA
This is Brian Dohn's sixth season covering UCLA after spending 4 1/2 years covering the Dodgers for the Daily News and other Los Angeles Newspaper Group papers. He graduated from Rutgers, where the first college football game was played in 1869. Sure, the Scarlet Knights suffered for a long time, but now RU is doing what Jerseyans always thought was possible. Winning at Rutgers also proves winning is possible everywhere else in the nation, so underachieving coaches better be careful. Now, if only men's hoops can turn it around.
ATV was solid as usual at his corner spot, but Michael Norris continues to get beaten regularly.
The Wave
Grade: A
I think the kicking game is horrendous. You cannot give the ball at the 30+ yardline every kickoff. Kick it along the ground or something, but kicking it to the 8 yard line and no contact before the 22 yard line (which is about typical for us without the wind)puts us in a lot of bad spots over the course of the season. I would like to see the average starting drive from every kickopff this season, but I would bet it is somewhere around the 35. That is not good.
I did not understand running continually on 1st down when they were jamming the box and getting 1 yard every time. Outside the last big run at the end of the game, we averaged less ta 2 yards a carry. I think if we had forced them to cover pass on 1st down it would have made a world of difference, this to me was a huge coaching mistake.
Is there any concern that only 28 points was scored against a team that had allowed over 60 points the past two games, was giving up, on average, over 200 yards rushing, and playing with their third string quarterback?
RE: Special teams. Kickoffs giving the opposing team starting field positions in the mid 30s isn't acceptable and Perez gets credit for great punting average but his net yard numbers must be horrible. He still outkicks the coverage most of the time which leads to big returns. We can't afford to keep giving back hard earned yardage on special teams.
anonymous 11:27 brought it up, so I'm going to use this opportunity for my rant. People, please do not do the wave while we're on offense. It's such a ridiculous display of bad fan behavior. The I'm going to college kids come every year, and every year they try to start the wave. Most years, the wave hits the new alumni section, or the student section, or the old folks section that I sit in, and dies. This year it just kept getting worse and worse and I kept getting more and more pissed off about it. By all means, do the wave when we're on defense. We could use the extra noise.
The worst part was that all of the people in my quiet old folks section fully participated in the wave. Yes, the same old people who tell us to sit down every game and the two idiot chads from UCSB sitting behind me who complained about us standing during kickoff all stood up about 15 times to do the wave. These people can stand up every minute or so for the wave, but they can't stand up on a defensive 3rd and short?
I used to think that most of the people in my section were just too old to stand up without breaking a hip but now I know that they actually hate UCLA, and are just there to take up space so fans like me can only get 6 season tickets.
A couple comments...
Norm Chow should have used the fourth quarter to practice stretching the field. A good defensive team can easily stuff the box and protect against a quick passing attack. Craft needs some practice throwing downfield and our WR's need practice getting open down field. We need to keep the other team's defenders honest - in the last few games, they've been playing our WR's tight knowing they aren't going anywhere.
Mike (kicking game) - I don't believe our kicker can physically kick it past the 8 yard line. BD reported a few back that we were looking at walk-ons who might be able to kick better.
Practice is for practice. Why put things on tape for other teams to see when you don't have to?