It sure seemed, at least for the first half, that the Bruins were just going through the motions, unable to shake the disappointment from their prior week’s loss to USC—a game that, without all the mistakes, they should have won. In spite of that they did score first but then they were down 11 points at one time and trailed early in the final quarter before they finally took the lead for good half way through the 4th and held Cal to a three-and-out on their next possession. But in between all that the offense struggled at times and the defense gave up too many big plays in the passing game to Cal QB Jack Plummer who connected on 24-of-34 for six yards shy of 300, 4 TD’s and no interceptions with more than half the yards and half of the TD’s collected by Junior WR Jeremiah Hunter. UCLA recorded no sacks and no tackles for loss in the game which created a pressure free pocket for Plummer to work out of which led to a 46 yard TD pass to J. Michael Sturdivant to tie the score 7-7 late in the 1st Qtr, a 38 yard TD pass to Jeremiah Hunter with 4:37 left in the 2nd Qtr to go ahead 14-10 and another to Hunter with under a minute left in the half to go up 21-10. On the ground, the Bears were not nearly as prolific with Freshman RB Jaydn Ott recording the majority of Cal’s 67 yard total on 13 rushing attempts.
The Bruins scored on a 19 yard DTR run with just 18 seconds left before the end of the half to get within 4 points at 21-17 and then came back out after the break to hold the Bears scoreless in the 3rd Qtr while they moved back in front on a 12 play 90 yard drive to go ahead 24-21 on a Dorian Thompson-Robinson 14 yard TD run, one of two DTR rushing touchdowns on the night. Besides DTR, three other Bruin players contributed significantlly to a UCLA running game that seemed at times like a run-away train that Cal had no chance of slowing down much less stopping. Senior RB Zach Charbonnet, Freshman RB TJ Harden, and Junior WR Colson Yankoff combined for 267 yards on 47 attempts with Charbonnet scoring what turned out to be the game winning TD half-way through the 4th Qtr to put UCLA up 35-28.
On UCLA’s next possession, after holding Cal to a three-and-out, they went on an 11 play 58 yard drive that landed them at 4th and 2 at the Cal 22 with less than two minutes left and an opportunity to make it a two score game with a field goal. Instead, the Bruins decide to go for it, and in doing so it felt like they were pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory. As Ben Bolch described it for the Los Angeles Times; “A gutsy decision — or a foolhardy one, depending on your perspective — to go for it on fourth and two at Cal’s 22-yard line with two minutes left failed, giving the Golden Bears one more chance to drive for a tying touchdown. UCLA linebacker Kain Medrano ended it a few plays later . . . when he knocked the ball out of Cal running back Jayden Ott’s hands. Linebacker Carl Jones Jr. recovered the fumble at the Golden Bears’ 38-yard line and sprinted around the stadium in celebration of the Bruins’ 35-28 victory.”
The score was a lot closer than the game stats in this one as UCLA led in 1st Downs by more than double, 33-to-15; led in Rushing Yards, 352-to-67; Total Yards of Offense, 541-to-361; and had possession of the ball 13.5 minutes longer in addition to successfully converting on 4th down both times prior to the late game decision to go for it which failed. With it UCLA clinched its first nine-win season under Chip Kelly and can match the school record for wins in a single year with a bowl victory next month. Regarding the win, Kelly had this to say afterwards; “It was cool to see that grittiness and that resiliency, They deserved this tonight. You can’t assure victory every week, but you can deserve it, and I think they deserved it by the way they train every week and the way they competed tonight.” After the prior week’s heart-breaking loss to their cross town rivals and their stumble agains Arizona, UCLA will await a bid to a bowl a bit less in stature than they had originally hoped. According to CBS projections you might find them in the Las Vegas Bowl agains Arkansas on December 17th at 7:30pm on ABC which will be pitting an SEC team against a PAC-12 team.