As Ben Bolch wrote for the Los Angeles Times about this one; “UCLA fans who gave up and went to bed should consider themselves the smart ones. They only missed more disappointment.” It’s games like this that keep UCLA playing during bedtime on the east coast—this one starting there at 11:00pm. And after a 34-13 beatdown by Oregon all the Bruins have to look forward to is more of the same next week out in University Park on the campus of No. 9 Penn State. So far the magic that I thought could take place between Bruin offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy and Ethan Garbers is pretty non-existent. That said, at least the UCLA center Josh Carlin knows the problem doesn’t lie completely on the shoulders of his QB and offered this to the AP afterwards; “I was talking to [Garbers], and I told him that as the leader of the offensive line, we need to figure this out. We need to keep him up. We failed at that miserably. We’ve got to start taking pride and not let him get hurt and not let him get touched so he can operate this offense.”
On the first five possessions of the game Oregon scored three times. First on a Dillon Gabriel 12 yard TD pass to Senior WR Traeshon Holden, next on an Atticus Sappington 41 yard field goal, and lastly on a Jordan James 2 yard TD run after Senior LB Bryce Boettcher intercepted Ethan Garbers at the UCLA 23 yard line on their second possession of the game to go up 17-3. And it didn’t stop there as the Ducks would extend their lead to 25-3 on another Gabriel TD pass and successful 2-point conversion after holding UCLA to a three-and-out on their third possession of the game and to 28-3 on a field goal after yet another three-and-out. UCLA would finally score again before the break on a huge pass interception deep in their own red zone and 96 yard return for TD to make it 28-10 at the half.
Although getting possession of the ball first to start the 3rd Qtr, UCLA couldn’t capitalize and had to punt just five plays into the drive. After holding Oregon to a three-and-out the Bruins would get the ball and close the gap a little on a 54 yard Mateen Bhaghani field goal six plays later to make it 28-13 half-way through the quarter. But that’s all the scoring UCLA would do in this one as Dillon Gabriel would connect on another TD pass, this one a 12 yarder to Tez Johnson to make it 34-13 after a missed PAT where it would stay.
Garbers, in what has to have been an extremely frustrating and disappointing day, connected on 12-of-20 for just 118 yards, no TD’s and 2 picks, while fighting off four sacks and having to leave the game in the fourth quarter with an ankle injury. The ground game was even more anemic with Junior RB T. J. Harden the only one that made any headway while rushing 13 times for 53 yards. For Oregon, Senior QB Dillon Gabriel connected on 31-of-41 for 278 yards, 3 TD’s and 1 interception while Junior RB Jordan James handled the load on the ground rushing 20 times for almost 70% of their 153 total yards as well as a TD. Oregon had way more than twice the number of first downs, 27-to-11; 250+ more yards of total offense, 431-to-172; had seven more minutes times of possession, and converted their 3rd downs successfully 60% of the time compared to 10% for the Bruins.
Regarding Oregon’s signal caller who transferred over in the portal to start for the Ducks with Bo Nix leaving for the NFL the AP provided some background: “Gabriel [has now become] the fourth Football Bowl Subdivision player to reach 16,000 yards passing for his career and moved into a three-way tie for third with 134 touchdown passes. The sixth-year senior has 16,059 yards in 54 games at three different schools. He played parts of three seasons at UCF before transferring to Oklahoma, where he played in 2022 and ’23. Gabriel decided to play his final year at Oregon because the Hawaii native wanted to play closer to home.”
Next Saturday in their Big Ten home opener the Ducks will be looking across the field at a familiar head coach as Jonathan Smith and his Michigan State Spartans come to town while UCLA hits the road to take on No. 9 Penn State—yikes!