BOULDER, Colo. “”mdash; As I was making the beautiful drive down Highway 36 from Denver to Boulder, I received a text from a friend of mine who has a bit of a gambling problem.
“Line is UCLA by 20. I have 100 on the Bruins. They better not let me down,” it read.
“Don’t hold your breath,” I replied.
No, I didn’t think they would lose to Colorado, one of the worst teams in college football, but UCLA winning by 20 or more seemed like a stretch. The Bruins are the more talented team and, on paper, should have rolled the Buffs.
But anyone who’s been watching UCLA football for a while knows that a 20-point win on the road is anything but a lock.
After the game, the scoreboard read 42-14, and UCLA’s players were being cheered into the locker room by a rather large contingent of Bruin fans that made the trip to the Centennial State.
The fans stayed well after the final whistle to laud their team on a boring game that had no reason to be as close as it was in the first half, but UCLA supporters will take 28-point wins any way they can get them. You know your program was in a sorry state when its fans are shocked that the team actually played up to expectations.
It seemed a little surreal. A UCLA team had come on the road, a game in which they were heavily favored by a large margin, and won … by a large margin.
“We came out focused and it was good for us to come on the road and handle our business,” said redshirt freshman quarterback Brett Hundley, who finished with four touchdowns and only seems to be improving. “This game showed a lot.”
Did it ever.
Much had been written about the Bruins’ 36-30 win over then-No. 17 Nebraska. Some called it a program changer, but after a disheartening loss to Oregon State last week at the Rose Bowl, typical UCLA skepticism began to creep back into the conversation.
After Saturday, it’s safe to say the “Is this team for real?” question can be answered with a resounding yes, regardless of how bad Colorado is. Much like the win over Houston, it wasn’t pretty, and yet UCLA won big. The defense dominated and, despite a lull in productivity in the third quarter, the offense capitalized on Colorado turnovers.
This team isn’t going to win a national title anytime soon, but you can count on them to put their consistent brand of football on display each Saturday. For the first time in a long time, this success feels authentic. Nothing could have been further from the truth in years past.
It boils down to two things that are largely codependent: confidence and coaching.
When asked why they were able to beat Colorado in a hostile environment, nearly every player pointed to how prepared they felt because of the way coach Jim Mora coached during the week.
“Coach Mora is an excellent coach,” redshirt senior cornerback Aaron Hester said. “He had us prepared to fire on all cylinders.”
Last season, when Rick Neuheisel’s Bruins alternated between close wins and blowout losses, not a positive word about preparation was spoken by the players. They were too busy starting fights at halftime.
As a result of Mora and his staff’s sound coaching, the Bruins are actually starting to buy in. Their confidence only continues to grow as they continue to manufacture wins, and the value of this belief in the team and in each other cannot be understated in college football.
“The confidence level is up, but it should be,” redshirt senior defensive end Datone Jones said. “What’s the point of putting on your pads if you don’t think you’re going to win?”
A fair question and one that should have been asked of nearly every UCLA player under Neuheisel.
UCLA finally appears to have all the pieces that every respectable college football program does. It has a coach who knows what he’s doing. It has players who believe they can win every game they play and, perhaps most importantly, it has playmakers on both sides of the ball. Those three things will keep the Bruins in close games and win them gimme games like Saturday’s.
So next time you’re in Vegas, you may not have to think twice about betting the house on UCLA.
Did you make the 16-hour drive to Boulder? Email Sam Strong at sstrong@media.ucla.edu or tweet him @SamStrong.