Monday, October 26, 2015

Part 7: #20 California vs. UCLA

          After two dreadful blowout losses to Arizona State and Stanford, UCLA football arrived back at the Rose Bowl banged up, unranked, and fourth of six in the Pac-12 South Division. But they still have a chance to keep their Pac-12 Championship and College Football Playoff hopes alive, beginning with a game at the Rose Bowl on Thursday night against the 20th-ranked California Golden Bears, who had a bye week the previous week after falling short 30-24 against then-5th-ranked Utah in Salt Lake City. The loss to Utah was Cal's only loss coming into this game. The first half went very well for the Bruins. After a Cal field goal, UCLA had 23 unanswered points. First, there was a 42-yard field goal by UCLA senior kicker Ka'imi Fairbairn. Then UCLA freshman quarterback Josh Rosen threw a touchdown pass to junior tight end Thomas Duarte. Then Rosen found senior wide receiver Devin Fuller for a 19-yard touchdown pass. Afterwards, Fairbairn kicked a 20-yard field goal. The score was 23-3 before Cal junior quarterback Jared Goff threw a great touchdown pass to wide receiver Kenny Lawler to cut the lead to 23-10. On the following UCLA drive, Ka'imi Fairbairn set a new career-long UCLA record with a 60-yard field goal. This was also the second longest field goal in Pac-12 conference history. The last time any kicker has kicked a field that was 60-yards or longer was Rice University's Chris Boswell in 2013.
          The halftime show was hilarious for Bruin fans. Both Cal's and UCLA's marching bands performed "The Fall of Troy" together. This story was based on the Greek myth that featured Odysseus. There were also band members dressed as Trojans. At the beginning, after Menelaus and Helen's wedding celebration, Trojans stormed in and stole Helen. The Greeks went over to Troy to battle against them, but they lost. So the Greeks created a wooden horse and loaded a few people inside the horse. It was sent over to Troy and fooled the Trojans, who hailed this huge horse. Afterwards, the Greeks stormed into Troy and defeated the Trojans. After the show, it was stated that history will repeat as both Cal and UCLA's football teams will defeat the USC Trojans football team later this season.
          The Bruins received the second half kickoff and scored off of it with Josh Rosen throwing his third touchdown pass of the night to Devin Fuller for 21 yards. After a Cal punt, UCLA had a chance to load up more points on the Bears, but that was stopped after Bruins defender Kenny Lacy committed a holding penalty. A holding penalty is when a player tries to block a player on the opposite team but making contact above the shoulders. This led to UCLA's first punt. A punt is when a team on offense kicks the ball to the opposing team when they think they cannot convert on fourth down. Cal scored on the following drive, but failed the two-point conversion. The score was 33-16. But the Bruins responded as UCLA freshman running back Soso Jamabo ran the ball into the end zone from 2 yards out to extend the lead to 40-16. The final score was 40-24 since Cal scored a touchdown plus had a successful 2-point conversion. UCLA managed to bounce back after two harsh back-to-back losses to seal their fifth win of the season. UCLA is only one victory away from becoming bowl eligible. That means that if a team has six victories, they can play an extra game at the end of the football season to know their final place at the end of the season.
          UCLA returned to the top 25 on Sunday morning. The Bruins are now ranked 24th in the country while Cal dropped out of the top 25. This is the beginning of a rebuilding time in this football season for UCLA. The Bruins' chances at making it to the Pac-12 Championship have risen significantly as then-3rd-ranked Utah suffered their first loss of the season to USC, who is tied with Arizona State and UCLA for second in the Pac-12 South Division, unfortunately. As of now, for UCLA to win the Pac-12 South, the Bruins need to win out, meaning that they need to win the rest of their games this season. The Arizona Wildcats can provide some assistance for UCLA's Pac-12 title hopes by also winning out, although they just barely lost 45-42 to the Washington State Cougars. Arizona State, who beat the Bruins 38-23 at the Rose Bowl earlier this year, needs to lose a game because they hold the tiebreaker over UCLA. Both of ASU's in-conference losses come against USC and Utah. They had a bye week this week and they will play against the Oregon Ducks of the Pac-12 North Division. The Ducks may give ASU their third conference loss of the year. Colorado has no chance whatsoever of winning the Pac-12 South despite defeating Oregon State this past weekend. USC can just do what they do, and Utah needs to lose to UCLA later this season, thanks to USC ripping open Utah's weaknesses to other teams.
          UCLA will play against Colorado this Saturday, which is Halloween, surprisingly. The game is at the Rose Bowl and game time starts at 12 noon. Cal will play against USC up in Berkeley (Yes, UC Berkeley is referred to as Cal) on the same day. I hope history does repeat itself as Cal will beat USC. I also hope that 24th-ranked UCLA will defeat Colorado and become bowl eligible. Gooooooo Bruins!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Part 6: #18 UCLA vs #15 Stanford

          The 18th-ranked UCLA Bruins traveled up to Palo Alto, California to clash with 15th-ranked Stanford on "The Farm", which is how some people refer to Stanford Stadium. Stanford was predicted to win by 7, a touchdown. In the first quarter, after the Bruins forced Stanford to punt, Josh Rosen threw his sixth interception of the year, which resulted as a pick-6 (an interception returned all the way back to the end zone) by Stanford defender Alijah Holder. UCLA responded with a field goal on their following drive after consecutive penalties on defender Caleb Benenoch cost the touchdown. On the next kickoff, Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey caught and returned it 96 yards, all the way to UCLA's four-yard line. This set up a Stanford touchdown pass from Kevin Hogan to Austin Hooper. But once again, UCLA responded as Josh Rosen threw a 70-yard touchdown pass to Darren Andrews, making the score 14-10 Stanford.
          This is when Stanford rocketed away. The Cardinal scored three more touchdowns to expand the lead to 35-10. First, there was a nine-yard touchdown pass from Hogan to Devon Cajuste. Then, there were two consecutive touchdown rushes by Christian McCaffrey. To close out the half, UCLA running back Paul Perkins ran the ball into Stanford's end zone to cut the score to 35-17.
          The third quarter was no better. Stanford wide receiver Francis Owusu made the most godly reception ever, in my opinion. At first, the play just looked like some trick play, as Christian McCaffrey took the snap, handed it off to Stanford running back Bryce Love, who pitched it back to Kevin Hogan, and Hogan followed up with the touchdown pass, which is already going to be the best play of the college football season, like nobody can beat that play. While I was watching the game, I thought it was an interception by UCLA defender Jaleel Wadood. But I was wrong. If anyone remembers that one catch Kodi Whitfield made against the Bruins two years ago, how about this catch? If you want to see that beautiful catch, check out the link at the end of the post.
          Anyways, back to the game, the score was now 42-17 Stanford. After a UCLA field goal, Christian McCaffrey ran for two more touchdowns to extend the lead to 56-20. One of these scores was off of Josh Rosen's seventh interception of the year. McCaffrey set a Stanford school record with the amount of rushing yards in a single game: 243 yards and four touchdowns. This was still in the third quarter. In total, McCaffrey had 369 all-purpose yards in this game. He currently leads the NCAA in all-purpose yards this season, with 1,518 yards on kickoff returns, receptions, and rushes combined, followed by San Jose State's Tyler Ervin (1,432 yards) and LSU's Leonard Fournette (1,258 yards). At the end of the game, Stanford crushed UCLA 56-35, ending the Bruins' NCAA-long road-game win streak and handing UCLA their second straight loss of the season.
          The Bruins dropped out of the top 25 on Sunday morning while Stanford joined the top 10 for the first time since the postseason top 25 in 2013. UCLA is only three spots away from coming back into the top 25. They have an opportunity to come back as they will play against the 20th-ranked California Golden Bears at the Rose Bowl this Thursday at 6:00 P.M. As a big-time Bruins fan, I hope the Bruins come back after two very disappointing back-to-back losses and snap back by beating a top-20 team. This will be the fourth team ranked in the top 20 that UCLA will play against this season. The previous three were 19th-ranked BYU (UCLA won 24-23), 16th-ranked Arizona (UCLA also won 56-30), and 15th-ranked Stanford (which I talked about in this blog). Goooooooooooooo Bruins!!!!!!!


Link to the catch made by Francis Owusu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHinglqAAhY

Monday, October 12, 2015

Part 5: What's happening on the Bye Week

           Hey, what's cooking in the world of college football? The 20th-ranked UCLA Bruins are taking a bye week, which is when a team takes the week off of playing. So this week, I'm going to talk about all of the football games that featured the top 25. On Thursday night, UCLA's crosstown rival, the then-17th-ranked USC Trojans played against the Washington Huskies. After the first half, USC kicked a field goal to lead 6-3. Huskies running back Myles Gaskin ran a bunch of big plays as he and quarterback Jake Browning led Washington to a 17-12 victory against USC. On Saturday, some of the games in the top 25 were quite wild. Top-ranked Ohio State escaped a struggling Maryland in a 49-28  Buckeyes victory. Maryland kept the games as close as a 21-21 tie midway through the third quarter, but could not hang on to top the #1 team in the country. Third-ranked Baylor exploded on offense in a 66-7 blowout win against Kansas, one of very few winless teams as of now. Number 14 Ole Miss was coming off of a blowout loss to the Florida Gators. They defeated New Mexico State 52-3 in a cakewalk game. New Mexico State is also a winless team.
            The first of the shockers this past Saturday was the Red River Rivalry game, featuring 10th-ranked Oklahoma and a struggling Texas football team. Texas bounced back from a series of disappointing losses, coming off of a 50-7 loss against then-4th-ranked TCU, taking a 24-17 win against 10th-ranked Oklahoma. Twenty-second ranked Iowa, who upset then-20th-ranked Wisconsin 10-6 the past week, held on to a 29-20 win against Illionois. Number 24 Toledo crushed Kent State 38-7. Both Iowa and Toledo are currently two of a few undefeated teams. The sixth and seventh-ranked teams, Clemson and LSU, cruised in their games. Clemson beat Georgia Tech 43-24 and LSU beat South Carolina 45-24. The Big Ten Conference's big game of the week featured #13 Northwestern and #18 Michigan. This game turned into Michigan's second shutout game against a ranked team, as they defeated Northwestern 38-0. Their other shutout win was a 31-0 game against then-22nd-ranked BYU, who barely lost 24-23 to UCLA the past week. Number 15 Notre Dame cruised past Navy 41-24 and #25 Boise State crushed Colorado State 41-10. As of now, Boise State's only loss this year was a 35-24 game against BYU, who, again, almost upset UCLA. Number 11 Florida had a stifling defense after crushing Ole Miss the past week. The Gators won 21-3 against Missouri.
          This is where the wildness comes in. Number 21 Oklahoma State traveled near the East Coast to take on West Virginia. Going into overtime, quarterback J.W. Walsh ran into the end zone on 4th down and goal to make the score 33-26. But on West Virginia's chance to tie up the game, quarterback Skyler Howard threw an incomplete pass on 4th down and goal, as Oklahoma State went on to continue staying undefeated. Number 19 Georgia was looking to rebound after a humiliating 38-10 loss to Alabama as they traveled to Knoxville, Tennessee to take on Tennessee. Unfortunately, Georgia lost for the second straight time, falling 38-31. Speaking of Alabama, the eighth-ranked Crimson Tide trailed a struggling Arkansas 7-3 at the half. They ran off in the fourth quarter, clinching a 27-14 victory. Second-ranked TCU was given a really bad time as they trailed 35-17 at halftime against Kansas State. The Horned Frogs rallied right back, using a go-ahead touchdown pass from Trevone Boykin to Josh Doctson to get a 52-45 win. Fourth-ranked Michigan State faced off against a flailing Rutgers. The Spartans trailed 14-10 at halftime. But they came right back and beat Rutgers on a go-ahead touchdown run by running back LJ Scott. Michigan State won 31-24. In the Sunshine state, #12 Florida State challenged Miami. The Hurricanes had a 24-23 lead that was blown as FSU running back Dalvin Cook saved the game as he did last year, leading Florida State to a 29-24 victory. Fifth-ranked Utah, coming off of a bye week after crushing then-#13 Oregon 62-20, took on 23rd-ranked California in Salt Lake City. In the third quarter, Cal cut Utah's lead to 27-24 after recovering a fumble from Utah running back Devontae Booker. On the final play of Cal's last offensive drive, Bears quarterback Jared Goff threw a pass intended straight for wide receiver Kenny Lawler, only to have it batted down by Utah defender Boobie Hobbs (Seriously, that's what everyone calls the guy. Do not take any offense to this, girls). Utah won the game 30-24 to remain undefeated as Cal suffered their first loss of the season.
            The new top 25 rankings were quite interesting the following Sunday morning, as USC and Georgia dropped out of the polls. Duke and Houston replaced them as Duke became #25 and undefeated Houston became 24th. Duke's only loss is against Northwestern, who is now ranked 20th after a blowout loss to Michigan. Michigan moved up to 12th. Their only loss this year was a 24-17 defeat against Utah at the start of the season. Speaking of Utah, the Utes rose to 4th after their victory against California, who stayed at 23rd in the polls despite losing their first game of the season. LSU and Clemson each moved up one spot as Clemson barged into the top 5, replacing Michigan State, who fell to 7th after a close call against Rutgers. LSU is now ranked 6th. Top-ranked Ohio State remains at #1 while Baylor and TCU swapped positions: Baylor being second and TCU being third. Florida hopped up to #8 after shutting down the Missouri offense in a 21-3 victory. Texas A&M stayed at ninth as they took a bye week. Alabama fell to tenth after barely escaping Arkansas at home. Florida State moved up one spot in the top 25 to #11. Ole Miss moved to 13th and Notre Dame moved to 14th. Oklahoma State and Iowa both leaped 5 spots. OK State is 16th and Iowa is 17th. Oklahoma tumbled to 19th after losing to a struggling Texas team. Boise State jumped to 21st and Toledo moved to 22nd after both teams had blowout wins.
            So where are Stanford and UCLA? Stanford, who had a bye week like UCLA and Texas A&M, moved up one spot to 15th, while UCLA moved to 18th. Both Stanford and UCLA will play each other this coming Thursday. Before this week, Stanford blew out Arizona 55-17 at home, a week after UCLA crushed U of A 56-30 in Arizona. In case you want to know who USC is playing next, well, they have to take on 14th-ranked Notre Dame in Indiana. But back to UCLA, let's hope that the Bruins will bounce back after getting crushed by Arizona State 38-23 at the Rose Bowl. Stanford has been the one team that UCLA always struggles to beat. Bruins head coach Jim Mora currently does not have any wins against Stanford. In the Jim Mora era (2012 football season-present), UCLA has lost to Stanford 35-17 in the Rose Bowl in 2012 and then lost again 27-24 at Stanford at the 2012 Pac-12 Championship off of a missed 52-yard field goal by Ka'imi Fairbairn. In 2013, UCLA's offense was smothered up at Stanford as the Bruins lost 24-10. Finally, in 2014, the Bruins, who were ranked eighth at the time coming off of a 38-20 blowout win against then-#19 USC, blew a conference championship opportunity by losing to a struggling Stanford at the Rose Bowl 31-10. This upcoming game may change things up for both teams, although Stanford is predicted to win by 5. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BRUINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, October 5, 2015

Part 4: Arizona State vs #7 UCLA

            The 7th-ranked UCLA Bruins were coming off of a big road win against the then-16th-ranked Arizona Wildcats, 56-30. Heading back to Pasadena, there was a whole lot of hype about the Bruins being a College Football Playoff contender. The Bruins were going to play against the Arizona State Sun Devils, who were coming off of a 42-14 blowout loss to the USC Trojans, UCLA's crosstown rival, at ASU's home stadium. The Bruins were favored by 13 points. The first quarter was almost scoreless, until Bruins freshman quarterback Josh Rosen got sacked in the UCLA end zone for an Arizona State safety. A safety is when a team's offense is backed up all the way into their own end zone. Safeties give the opposing defense 2 points and a free offensive possession. So UCLA kicked it off to ASU. ASU's returner, Tim White, fumbled the catch, but quickly picked it right back up and returned the kickoff 63 yards, deep into UCLA territory. ASU scored off of that drive to make the score 9-0. In the second quarter, UCLA rolled up 10 points, ending the half on a career-long 53-yard field goal by senior place kicker, Ka'imi Fairbairn. The halftime score was 15-10 ASU. In the first half, Josh Rosen completed 13 of 19 passes for 160 yards. Now if that wasn't bad, the rushing game was horrid for UCLA, as the Bruins had a total of 17 rushing yards. Junior running back Paul Perkins, who came into this game with 128.5 rushing yards per game, barely went anywhere.
               The third quarter did not go well at all for UCLA. Three minutes and 55 seconds in the third quarter, Arizona State senior quarterback Mike Bercovici found a big hole up the middle to run to the end zone, making it a 22-10 ASU lead. The Bruins' defense still struggled as Bercovici found DJ Foster in the end zone to make the score 29-10. By this point in the game, I thought I was having a nightmare, but I was not, sadly. In the fourth quarter, Paul Perkins ran right up the middle to cut the lead down to 29-16. The Bruins failed on a two-point conversion attempt as Josh Rosen threw an incomplete pass intended for UCLA senior wide receiver Jordan Payton. On an ASU third down, Mike Bercovici threw a pass that was intercepted by UCLA defender Issako Savaiinaea.Then, Josh Rosen threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to junior tight end Thomas Duarte, cutting the score to 29-23. After the Bruins put a stop to ASU's offense on the UCLA 47-yard line, ASU punter Matt Haack punted the ball all the way to UCLA's one-yard line. That punt pretty much killed the game and the mood for UCLA Bruin fans, especially me. The UCLA offense went next-to-nowhere on that drive. To keep it a one-possession game, Long snapper Christopher Longo purposely over-snapped UCLA punter Adam Searl to give ASU another safety. If UCLA actually punted, the ball would land in field goal range, and if ASU kicked the field goal, the game would be out of reach. The score was 31-23 ASU. The Bruins' defense tried to give it their all, as they spent the majority of the game on the field. Deep in UCLA territory, when the game was practically over, Arizona State running back Kalen Ballage rushed with a horde of UCLA defenders on him for a 23-yard touchdown. Then that really ended the game. Arizona State gave UCLA their first loss of the season, defeating the Bruins 38-23 at the Rose Bowl. Josh Rosen completed a total of 22 of 40 passing attempts for 280 yards, 2 touchdowns, and one interception. His victorious counterpart, Mike Bercovici, completed 27 of 44 passing attempts for 273 yards, 2 touchdowns, and one interception, just like Rosen. What really stumbled for the Bruins was the 67 total rushing yards that they had. Paul Perkins accounted for 63 of those yards. This is the second straight season in which UCLA came to the Rose Bowl off of a blowout road win (last year was a 62-27 victory against 15th-ranked ASU in Tempe, Arizona, and this year, a 56-30 victory against 16th-ranked Arizona in Tucson, Arizona) against a ranked team which became a fluke as the Bruins lose miserably at the Rose Bowl against an unranked team coming off of a lousy loss at home the previous week (last year Utah beat UCLA 30-28 after losing 28-27 against the Washington State Cougars in Salt Lake City, Utah, and this year, ASU was trounced in Tempe, Arizona by USC 42-14). UCLA tumbled all the way down from 7th to 20th in the Top 25.
              The Bruins were not the only team that struggled as a top 10 team. Third-ranked Ole Miss was crushed in "the Swamp" (Florida's home stadium in Gainesville, Florida) by 25th-ranked Florida 38-10. Eighth-ranked Georgia flopped at home against 13th-ranked Alabama by an identical score as the aforementioned Ole Miss game. Sixth-ranked Notre Dame fell short against 12th-ranked Clemson 24-22 at Clemson's Memorial Stadium. Second-ranked Michigan State held on against a 1-win Purdue team in Michigan 24-21. Finally, top-ranked Ohio State maintained their status as number one in the country after finishing off unranked Indiana 34-27 in Indiana. UCLA is going on a bye week this next week before traveling up to Palo Alto, California to take on the Stanford Cardinal, who are currently ranked 16th in the nation. Let's hope that the Bruins bounce back after their loss to ASU and win against Stanford. UCLA has a very long win streak when not playing at the Rose Bowl, as they haven't lost since falling to #2 Oregon in Eugene, Oregon 42-14 in the 2013 football season. So let's see what happens Thursday after next when UCLA challenges Stanford up in Northern California. Gooooooooooooo Bruins!!!!!!!