In the two teams' last meeting in 2012, then-18th-ranked UCLA defeated Washington State up in Washington 44-36. The Bruins and the Cougars were tied 7-7 until UCLA rocketed off by outscoring WSU 30-0 in the second quarter. The Cougars rallied, but did not have enough time to catch up to the Bruins. Former UCLA quarterback Brett Hundley led the Bruins' offense by completing 18 of 21 passes for 261 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Given that this is UCLA's final game at the Rose Bowl this season, vendors were selling trading cards with the information of each senior Bruin players' statistics over their college career at UCLA just outside of the stadium. Before this game, Fairbairn was one point short of breaking the UCLA record of "most points responsible for". He had his struggles early in his career. In his freshman year, he blew a 52-yard field goal that could've tied the score with Stanford in the 2012 Pac-12 Championship. Stanford won 27-24. In Fairbairn's junior year, he barely missed a 50-yard field goal that could've helped UCLA beat Utah. The Utes won 30-28. But this year, Fairbairn set two personal-best long field goals. He kicked a 53-yard field goal against Arizona State, whom UCLA lost to 38-23. Three weeks later, he kicked a 60-YARD FIELD GOAL against then-#20 California. This was the second longest field goal in Pac-12 history and the longest in UCLA history. UCLA went on to win that game 40-24.
In the first quarter, the Bruins managed to stop the Cougars' offense by pushing them back all the way to their own 3-yard line. The Bruins marched down the field to kick a 22-yard field goal and lead 3-0. This field goal by Ka'imi Fairbairn set the UCLA and Pac-12 records for "most points responsible for". Washington State scored a touchdown on their next drive to take a 7-3 lead. Again, the Bruins responded with a field goal. The score was 7-6. In the second quarter, UCLA scored their first touchdown of the game off of a 14-yard touchdown rush from sophomore running back Nate Starks. On the following drive, WSU quarterback Luke Falk was sacked and had to sit out for the rest of the half. Their backup QB, Peyton Bender threw a touchdown pass WSU receiver Dom Williams to take back the lead to 14-13. To go into halftime, Fairbairn kicked his third field goal of the night. The halftime score was 16-14 UCLA.
At halftime, all of the senior Bruins were honored as they came out onto the field with their parents. Senior players included wide receivers Devin Fuller and Jordan Payton, kicker Ka'imi Fairbairn, center Jake Brendel, punter Matt Mengel, backup quarterback Jerry Neuheisel (all Bruin fans love this guy), and linebacker Aaron Wallace. After that, a 100-yard United States flag was spread out onto the field for Military Appreciation Day.
To start the third quarter, UCLA stalled on their first drive at their own 47-yard line. So they tried to send out junior wide receiver Kenneth Walker out onto the field to punt like he did against California. At first, it looked like a fake punt, but Walker decided at the last second to kick it away. The only problem was that the punt went sideways. So guess what? It was a ZERO-YARD PUNT. If people are wondering if that was even possible, well, now they know. Washington State took advantage of this and took the lead back 21-16. UCLA's next drive wasn't any help either. Wide receiver Darren Andrews fumbled the ball and it was recovered by WSU. The Cougars kicked a field goal early in the fourth quarter to lead 24-16. After a UCLA field goal, WSU was knocking on the door for a score, but Luke Falk was intercepted by Jaleel Wadood in the end zone. This led to a big scramble by UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen for a 37-yard rushing touchdown. This was Rosen's second career rushing touchdown and his longest run. The two-point conversion to junior tight end Thomas Duarte was successful and UCLA led 27-24 with 1 minute and 9 seconds left to go in the game. But WSU wasn't finished. The Cougars marched right down the field. Then, Luke Falk threw a 21-yard touchdown pass to receiver Gabe Marks with 3 SECONDS LEFT IN THE GAME. The score was 31-27. Trying to come back, Rosen scrambled for a while, but threw an incomplete pass, which sealed the game as UCLA suffered their third loss of the season and moved to 7-3 overall.
UCLA fans were very, very angry. After the game ended, all of the UCLA fans, myself included, were booing at the referees. The officiating was absolutely horrible. There were AT LEAST 10 HOLDING PENALTIES on Washington State that they did not call, yet they have a better view of the field than all of the fans. UCLA suffered 13 penalties for 75 yards. For Bruin fans, it is like every single penalty is on themselves and not the opponent. I am wondering, do the refs have something against us? Maybe that is so. UCLA should've won this game, but nope. The refs were helping Washington State. Even UCLA head coach Jim Mora got ticked off at the refs for not calling OBVIOUS HOLDING PENALTIES, throwing down his headset and screaming at them. I personally think that the conference should fire these officials because this isn't only happening to UCLA. Below the post is an example of one of the holding penalties that wasn't called by the officials. Arizona State lost to Oregon on a bad call earlier this year. An Oregon receiver barely stepped out of bounds in what the refs called a touchdown, which led to Oregon's 61-55 3OT victory against Arizona State. This has been an issue since I-don't-know-when. I personally think that Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott needs to fire these referees and hire new ones. The main reason why the Pac-12 has not lived up to expectations is the terrible officiating.
Speaking of the Pac-12 conference altogether, there is no chance at all that a Pac-12 team will make it to this year's College Football Playoff. Then-7th-ranked Stanford lost 38-36 to Oregon at Stanford. Then-#10 Utah lost at Arizona 37-30 in double overtime. Of course, as said in this blog earlier, then-#19 UCLA also lost. USC escaped Colorado 27-24 in Boulder, Colorado in freezing temperature, Arizona State defeated Washington 27-17 at Sun Devil Stadium, and California defeated Oregon State 54-24.
UCLA fell out of the top 25 once again on Tuesday evening. USC(24th) and Oregon(23rd) both joined the top 25, but will play an elimination game next Saturday in Oregon. Even with this awful loss, UCLA still has a decent chance to clinch the Pac-12 South. Utah lost to Arizona, giving the Utes their second loss in conference play. UCLA has three conference losses and USC has two. If UCLA beats both Utah and USC, the Bruins will own the tiebreaker over both teams. UCLA will play against 13th-ranked-Utah this Saturday on the road. This will be a tough game for both teams as this will be an elimination game for the Pac-12 South. The winner will probably go on to face Stanford, Washington State, or Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship. The loser will have no chance of going to the Pac-12 Championship. After this game, the Bruins will return to Los Angeles to challenge USC in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in a rivalry game after Thanksgiving. Let's hope that the UCLA Bruins will recover from this heartbreaking loss to Washington State and defeat Utah and USC to head to the Pac-12 Championship. Gooooooooooooooooo Bruins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is one of the holding penalties that the referees/officials
neglected to call. UCLA fans kept shouting, "HOLDING!
WHERE'S THE FLAG?!". A "flag" is a penalty marker indicating that a
player on one of the teams is breaking a rule in football. As a result, the
team will either have extra yards to have to gain back (offense) or
the opposing team will have less yards to need to pick up for a
1st down (defense). UCLA was on defense in this play while Washington State
was on offense. You could see that UCLA defender Deon Hollins (black jersey #58)
was being held by a Washington State offensive lineman. If the referees called
this penalty, Washington State would have had to cover 10 extra yards on
offense to pick up a 1st down.
No comments:
Post a Comment