I mean even when UCLA got a slow start and found themselves down 14-0 at the end of the 1st Qtr did we ever think they wouldn’t come back and win this one against Arizona? Maybe part of the film study for the game was Arizona’s 45-20 loss to Utah in Week-10. If it was they probably should have picked the narrow escape USC had the week before in their 45-37 win over the Wildcats where Arizona had 543 Total Yards of Offense and QB Jayden de-Laura, second only to Washington’s Michael Penix-Jr in passing yards, connected on 60% of his passes for 380 yards and 3 TD’s. de-Laura was even more accurate in this one connecting on almost 80% of his passing attempts for 315 yards and 2 TD’s in the air while also rushing for another score.
The Wildcats drew first blood after holding UCLA to a three-and-out on their first possession of the game and following that up with a seven play 55 yard drive to go up 7-0 on a TD run by Junior RB Michael Wiley on 2nd and 5 at the UCLA 10 yard line. Five plays and a UCLA punt later, aided by a Bruin offensive pass interference penalty, the Wildcats were back in business and had apparently decided that as explosive as UCLA can be, averaging 39.5 points per game, it would be best to limit their time on the field. Arizona’s second drive into the end zone was seven plays, just like the first, except this time they took over eight minutes to go just eight yards further, using five minutes more of the clock than they did the first time. With just under four minutes left in the 1st Qtr, Arizona goes up 14-0 on a 22 yard Jayden de-Laura pass to RB Michael Wiley—his second score of the game.
UCLA finally starts to close the gap early in the 2nd Qtr on a 12 play 73 yard drive ending with the Bruin’s great RB Zach Charbonnet in the end zone, now down by only one score 14-7. Charbonnet had a great game, rushing 24 times for 181 yards of the Bruins 220 yard total and all three of their rushing TD’s. When UCLA tied the score at 14 a piece on their next possession on a 51 yard Dorian Thompson-Robinson TD pass to Hudson Habermehl I’m sure the entire Bruin nation breathed a sign of relief and expected the blowout to commence. But Arizona wasn’t buying in and proceeded to march down the field 75 yards in 10 plays, taking over six minutes, to go back up 21-14 on a de-Laura QB keeper into the end zone on a 3rd and goal at the UCLA 3 yard line. Not to worry right, there’s still two minutes left in the half and it only took the Bruins 1:34 to score their last TD. Plenty of time to tie the score at 21 a piece by half-time, go in sort all this shit out, come back out and shut these guys down. And it almost looked like that’s exactly what was going to happen after Keegan Jones returned the kick-off 11 yards to the UCLA 22 yard line. Eleven plays later the Bruins found themselves at 4th and 2 on the Arizona 26 with 28 seconds left. But after an illegal formation penalty they were 4th and 7 at the Arizona 31 with just 17 seconds left. Thompson-Robinson ran the ball 11 yards, enough for the first down, but fumbled and lost the ball to Arizona—score 21-14 at the break. We love DTR right, but when he does screw up it always seems to be at the worst possible time.
The bad juju continued with UCLA’s first possession of the 3rd Qtr when on the 7th play of their drive, and sitting right on the edge of the Arizona Red Zone, DTR runs for a loss of three yards. Now 2nd and 13 at the Arizona 24 DTR runs for another 3 yard loss. On 3rd and 16 DTR’s pass falls incomplete. On 4th and 16 Nicholas Barr-Mira comes out for a 45 yard field goal attempt—blocked! Chip’s always been good at making the right adjustments at half-time to right the ship and in spite of this rocky start to the second half when the Bruins held Arizona scoreless in the third quarter and finally tied the score at 21 a piece on another Zach Charbonnet TD run with 3:38 left in the period it seemed as though UCLA was finally going to be able to get a handle on this game.
Ten plays and 57 yards later, with 55 of those yards coming from two long Jayden de-Laura passes Arizona is sitting 3rd and 3 at the UCLA 4 yard line. This time however, the UCLA defense steps up and Grayson Murphy sacks de-Laura for a loss of 14 yards. The Wildcat Place Kicker Tyler Loop is right on the money and Arizona goes back up 24-to-21. The Bruins come right back to take a 28-24 lead on another Zach Charbonnet run but can’t stop Arizona on their next posssession, an 8 play, 82 yard drive, that puts them back on top 31-28 on a de-Laura 17 yard TD pass to Tetaiora McMillan. But with 6:34 left in the 4th Qtr and only down three if you’re a Bruin fan there is plenty of time left to pull this mess out because you know that after already beating Washington who just beat Oregon as well as Utah there’s no possible way in hell your team is going to miss playing for the PAC-12 Conference Championship by losing to ARIZONA!
The Bruins get a great 25 yard kick-off return to the start of their victory drive. Starting 1st and 10 at their own 32 yard line DTR’s first pass falls incomplete. Right away I’m thinking they need to not only score here but with 6:27 left we also need to eat up clock. With Charbonnet averaging 7.5 yards per carry this game why are we passing at all? 2nd and 10 they hand off to Charbonnet who picks up 4 yards. 3rd and 6 DTR’s pass falls incomplete. Sitting 4th and 6 at their own 36 yard line with 5:47 left they decide to go for it instead of punting the ball and DTR’s pass falls incomplete again. I’m assuming the thinking here is that if UCLA can hold them to a field goal there will still be time enough left to go down the field and win the game on a TD and extra point. But the problem is Arizona has been using all of the clock on all their drives to limit the amount of time UCLA has on offense and in spite of already being in field goal range, Arizona takes almost five minutes off the clock moving the ball 30 yards down to the UCLA 6 before they send in Tyler Lock to make an easy 23 yard field goal to go up 34-28 with just 67 seconds left in the game. Starting from their own 28 yard line the Bruins worked their way down to the Arizona 29 on three DTR pass completions and a defensive pass interference call. But that’s where the game would end following four DTR pass incompletions in a row with the last being a shot to Jake Bobo who was wide open in the end zone but couldn’t come up with the ball after a diving attempt.