When it comes to Hawaii it’s all about their 6’ 3” Senior QB Brayden Schager who last week, in their opening 35-14 win against the Delaware State Hornets, threw for two TD’s and ran for two with the only other points on the board for the Rainbow Warriors coming on a punt return for TD by Sophomore WR Tylan Hines on Special Teams. And although UCLA’s Defensive Coordinator D’Anton Lynn left the building for USC at the end of last season it appears that the mindset, discipline, and execution appear to be still in place—which is a good thing and about the only thing that saved the Bruins from a Week-1 loss. With UCLA starting QB Ethan Garbers going up a learning curve in Bieniemy’s playbook while also working out opening day jitters, it was the defense pressuring Schager and the Hornets offense all game long with 5 sacks and 11 tackles for loss that kept UCLA in the game and close enough to finally take a 16-13 lead for the very first time with only 56 seconds left in the 4th Qtr. And fittingly, it was the defense that sealed the deal with a fumble recovery at the end to keep the game from very likely going into overtime.
What surprised me most about this match-up and probably exacerbated Garbers’ poor performance was the lack of a solid UCLA run game. With four returning offensive line starters as well as RB TJ Harden who rushed for over 800 yards last year while averaging 5.3 yards per carry I expected so much more than 71 yards on 20 rushing attempts with Garbers accounting for well over half—especially against a Hawaii team that is projected to finish ninth in the Mountain West. Like the AP wrote in their recap for ESPN; “UCLA was picked to finish 15th out of 18 teams in a preseason Big Ten Conference media poll. It entered the game — its first under coach DeShaun Foster and its debut as a Big Ten Conference member — with much uncertainty, but the Bruins may have more questions after week 1 than in the lead up to it.”
Looking at it I feel like I need to give the Bruins a pass on this one. After all they have a new head coach, a new offensive coordinator, and new defensive coordinator. Fortunately their head coach, DeShaun Foster, worked with D’Anton Lynn last year which probably helps explain the continuity that we saw in the defense during this game. It was obvious that the new offense was not working for RB TJ Harden who, after averaging over 5 yards per carry last year, was only able to run 9 yards on 9 carries—yikes! Eric Bieniemy is a great coach and fortunately UCLA has an early bye which will give them two weeks to straighten out what was pretty much an offensive mess.
Speaking of that let’s take a look. In the air Garbers was able to connect just 50% of the time, which for a 6’ 3” QB with his skill set is under achieving to say the least. He finished 19-of-38 for 272 yards and 1 TD to go along with 2 picks. The UCLA offense in the first half consisted of three punts, two interceptions and one missed field goal with one of those interceptions leading to a field goal for Hawaii which put them up 10-0 at the break. The other seven came on the Rainbow Warriors’ first possession of the game, a 73 yard 9 play drive ending with a 19 yard TD pass from Brayden Schager to Sophomore WR Pofele Ashlock.
The Bruins finally got untracked after the break, holding Hawaii to a three-and-out to start the 3rd Qtr and then scoring their only TD of the game on a well executed 8 play 96 yard drive culminating in a 39 yard TD pass from Garbers to WR Rico Flores Jr. to trail by just thee at 10-7. Hawaii pushed it back up on their very next possession with a field goal to go up 13-7. Scoring a field goal of their own and then another after an interception of Schager made it a 13-13 tie with all but one minute of the 4th Qtr still remaining. The UCLA defense dug in and stopped Hawaii on back-to-back possessions to keep it tied with just three minutes left in the 4th Qtr. Three Ethan Garbers’ passes to go along with two Ethan Garbers’ runs put them 4th and 1 at the Hawaii 14 yard line where Mateen Bhaghani connected on his third field goal of the game without a miss—this one from 32 yards out—to put the Bruins up by three, 16-13, with less than a minute left. Three plays later, sitting 4th and 6 at their own 29 yard line, Schager completes a 10 yard pass to Profile Ashlock who fumbles the ball into the hands of UCLA’s Brian Addison—game over—whew! That was way harder than it should have been and fortunately for UCLA they’ve got two weeks before they host Indiana in the Rose Bowl—their first Big Ten opponent—who easily took care of Florida International in Week-1, 31-7