UCLA coaching staff stymied on Saturday
The stats don’t tell the complete story of Saturday’s blowout win over UCLA by BYU.
Why?
Because they do not account for the Cougars using their firepower for only 2.5 quarters. The turnovers by UCLA also skewed the stats a little bit. And remember, BYU could have had four turnovers of their own in this game when you consider two passes to Collie could have been intercepted, they were right in the hands of the defender, although one was a tie that ended in an incompletion. Harvey Unga’s fumble luckily rolled out of bounds. Remember the one tipped pass that Andrew George alertly knocked down while surrounded by Bruin defenders?
What would have happened if those plays had been turnovers for BYU? I’m not saying the Cougars would have lost or that it even would have been a close game, but BYU, unlike the Cougar experience at Washington, did receive some great bounces in this game that do not show up in stats.
Once again, college football tells us you cannot read too much into statistics. The BYU 28-27 win at Washington is a score that does not reflect BYU’s superior play over the Huskies — it was a game that should have been a two touchdown victory.
Also, statistics do not uncover how completely baffled UCLA’s staff was on BYU’s game plan. It included wrinkles, new plays, new formations, more of a spread attack and the defense showed a little 3-3-5 with Scott Johnson moving to KAT safety and Brandon Bradley replacing him at corner.
The bigger picture? This was one of the most dominating, lopsided wins by BYU ever. Because it came over the Bruins is even more of a statement-type event. Wonder how it was received by some of BYU’s recruits out there, like QB Jake Heaps, Hawaii’s Manti Te’o and Spanish Fork’s Richard Wilson? These are athletes who are considering Pac-10 offers.
And how about the MWC going 4-0 against the Pac-10? The league nudged up a little bit over the weekend. It may have been the MWC’s biggest weekend in it’s 10-year history, the biggest news being UNLV’S win over ASU.
The Cougars were 13 of 17 in third-down conversions and averaged 6.1 yards per play on Saturday.
I have some leftover quotes from the game from UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel…
On why there wasn’t as much pressure on Hall as we have seen in the past from UCLA
“We probably were trying to get there but he got the ball out of his hands so fast. He just was having an unbelievable first half, I don’t know what his numbers were but they were staggering in terms of hitting every ball. It was a really, really good effort by Max Hall, he is an outstanding player.”
On BYU’s defense:
“They played terrifically. They were able to play everything in front of them because of the lead and we were’nt able to execute to the level that we need to be able to execute when we are playing this caliber of an opponent.”
On why there wasn’t as much pressure on Hall as we have seen in the past from UCLA:
“We probably were trying to get there but he got the ball out of his hands so fast. He just was having an unbelievable first half, I don’t know what his numbers were but they were staggering in terms of hitting every ball. It was a really, really good effort by Max Hall, he is an outstanding player.”
On other things:
“We did not come in here with the idea that we were going to do anything but play a really good game and have a chance to win and that got taken away rather quickly.”
“When it got to 14 nothing, at that point we had three straight turnovers and it just came at the absolute wrong time.”