When Stanford recovered a bad snap for a touchdown
on the Bruins’ third play from scrimmage and freshman
quarterback Matt Moore’s third play of his career, even his
own family thought the worst.
“I thought it was last week all over again,” his
younger brother Robbie said after the game. “Then people
called us from home saying it never got to his hands.”
Instead, the game turned out nothing like last week when all
three quarterbacks fumbled the ball. Moore played simple but
mistake-free football. He finished 7-of-19 for 142 yards and a
touchdown. But the most important statistics were nothing: zero
interceptions and zero fumbles.
“He looked good, especially after the start we had. He
didn’t come unraveled,” offensive coordinator Kelly
Skipper said. “He made some throws when he had to.”
Moore threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to senior tight end
Mike Seidman at the start of the second quarter to put UCLA back in
the game, down 15-10. But perhaps his prettiest play of the night
was a 49-yard-deep ball to junior wide receiver Tab Perry in
traffic.
“That was probably one of the best deep balls I’ve
caught since I’ve been here,” Perry said. “It
wasn’t too high. It wasn’t too low. He put it right
over the corner, right in front of the safety, in the perfect
spot.”
Moore benefitted from better protection than the offensive line
and other blockers provided in last week’s game at Cal. The
offensive line gave up only two sacks, but credited Moore with part
of its success.
“He protected himself almost,” sophomore offensive
lineman Steve Vieira said. “He scrambled a little bit and
threw the ball away a couple times instead of sitting back there
and taking a hit like a rookie would do.”
Moore’s performance could create a quarterback controversy
this week if fellow freshman Drew Olson has recovered from a
separated shoulder.
Senior punter Nate Fikse was 5-of-5 in his new field goal
duties, the most field goals made by a Bruin since Chris
Sailer’s five against Washington in 1998. It was also the
first time Fikse has made a field goal (although he attempted one
against Colorado) since high school.
“I’ve been waiting for three years,” Fikse
said. “It’s too bad Chris can’t do what
he’s doing because he’s done a really good job the past
few years.” Fikse replaced Sailer as field goal kicker this
week.
Prior to the Stanford game, UCLA was 10th in the Pac-10 in field
goal percentage. Fikse made field goals from 19, 22, 23, 36, and 44
yards when UCLA failed to come away with a touchdown in several
situations.
“The main thing was to come away with points. That is
something we haven’t done in the last few games,” said
Skipper who was impressed with Fikse. “He kept us chipping
away.”
The Bruin defense held the Cardinal to 241 total yards, only 75
of which came through the air.
“Ricky Manning and Matt Ware did a great job of locking
down our outside threats,” said injured Stanford quarterback
Chris Lewis who watched from the sidelines.
“We expected they would do that,” quarterback Kyle
Matter said. “But we didn’t expect they would be able
do such a good job of it.”
Manning had one interception. Senior linebacker Marcus Reese
once again led the team with twelve tackles and junior strongside
linebacker Brandon Chillar recorded eleven tackles and made
Matter’s life miserable with two sacks. The Bruin defense as
a whole recorded six sacks on the day.
Defensive end Ryan Boschetti is not a liar. Prior to the game he
guaranteed a win over the Cardinal to the Daily Bruin.
“I took a lot of heat from my comrades because I
shouldn’t be predicting. You’re not supposed to say
that kind of thing to the press,” said Boschetti who had half
a sack, five tackles and a forced fumble. “I felt really
confident because of the way our defense practiced this
week.”
Boschetti’s telepathy also led him to predict at halftime
that Nate Fikse would go 5-of-5 on field goals.