Arizona at UCLA
Chip Kelly must have been pretty confident going into this game and the Wildcats must be feeling like Rodney Dangerfield after having two teams in a row go for 4th and short within their own 30 yard line on their first possession of the game. For Jimmy Lake and Washington a fake punt worked out. For Chip Kelly and Demetric Felton the one yard they needed turned into a 3 yard loss and an Arizona TD four plays later to start the game off down seven early. But that’s the last time Felton ran backwards in this game picking up a career high 206 yards and one TD, averaging 6.4 yards per carry, enroute to a 27-10 victory over Arizona in the Rose Bowl this past Saturday evening. Felton rushed for 134 yards in the first half alone and it’s the third game in a row he has rushed for over 100 yards after being giving the lead back responsibilities.
Freshman QB Will Plummer got thrown into the game for the Wildcats when starter Grant Gunnell hurt his shoulder after getting blitzed and tackled into the ground on the very first play of the game by UCLA LB Bo Calvert-eliminating what might have been an advantage with the UCLA starter Dorian Thompson-Robinson also out. Plummer, in his very first college game, struggled throwing into the highly talented UCLA secondary, completing only about 50% of his passes for 151 yards on the night, no TD’s and two interceptions-one that led to a UCLA TD five plays later and the other that ended any chance of a late 4th Qtr comeback. UCLA’s Freshman QB Chase Griffin was an efficient 12 of 20 for 129 yards and one TD pass to Senior RB Brittain Brown.
After adding 17 points on their last three possessions of the first half to an earlier field goal and going into the break leading 20-7, it looked as though the game was headed towards a blowout. But the UCLA offense grinded to a halt until that late 4th Qtr interception from Plummer that put them on the Arizona 30 yard line where Felton and Brown teamed up to get into the end zone five plays later. As far as the Wildcats go after that first TD, courtesy of a bad decision in the first two minutes of the game, their offense was non-existent-scoring only three points the rest of the entire game on a field goal with a little over a minute left in the third.
Arizona Head Coach Kevin Sumlin keeps the possibility of a winless season alive, now at 0-3, while Chip Kelly is sitting at 2-2 and No. 3 in the PAC-12 South behind USC and Colorado, both at 3-0. The Trojans will be cheering the Wildcats on as they go back home to host Colorado while UCLA packs their bags for Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe to take on Arizona State, a team that was supposed to be competing for the PAC-12 South Division Title this year but have only been able to play one game so far due to COVID, the game they really won but lost to USC in Week 1. After that it’s the Bruins and the Trojans head-to-head in the Rose Bowl to finish off this shortened season.
San Diego State at Colorado
You might think just because Colorado’s PAC-12 game was cancelled that they took advantage to get an easy win against a team outside of a Power 5 conference. But think again, San Diego State is traditionally a very good team and in fact in their previous six meetings with PAC-12 teams were 5-1. They are part of the Mountain West Conference which includes Boise State and have won 12 conference championships and three national championships in the small college division. If a game has been cancelled early in the week, the PAC-12 requires that their schools wait until Thursday morning to see if another PAC-12 team would be available for the same reason. After that the teams may look outside of their own conference for an opponent to play against, leaving in this case the head coach Karl Dorrell, staff, and players only 48 hours to get ready to compete against a team that they might be completely unfamiliar with.
Both teams were very balanced in their offensive approach towards the game which is quite evident in the team stats. For example, Colorado Senior QB Sam Noyer connected on 17 of 29 for 138 yards and 1 TD while the team rushed for 134 yards, with Sophomore RB Jarek Broussard picking up 124 yards of that on 32 carries and Noyer picking up the only rushing TD. In a similar fashion, but in a smaller way, San Diego State’s two QB’s combined for 76 yards while the team rushed for 79 yards with the Aztec Junior QB Jordon Brookshire picking up 50 in the air and 50 on the ground. But the only score the Aztecs put up on the board on their own was a 48 yard field goal with just 4 seconds left in the first half. They got the other 7 points in their 20-10 defeat to Colorado just three minutes earlier when Noyer threw a pick six to Junior CB Darren Hall who returned the ball 57 yards to the house.
San Diego State out-tackled the Buffaloes but their defense was also on the field for fifteen minutes longer while Colorado recorded twice as many sacks and 11 tackles for loss. Ball security was a problem for Colorado with three fumbles and one interception that cost them on the scoreboard. Fortunately, none of the fumbles were lost, but it has to be of concern moving forward with the next two games on the road, one against Utah who in the past has thrived on the turnover. This next week they’ll be traveling to Tuscon to take on the struggling Wildcats in Arizona Stadium.