Last season Arizona State was ranked No. 25 in the nation in offense. This season, UCLA is ranked No. 13.
The common denominator? Offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone.
Mazzone worked the same role with the Sun Devils last season as he does now for the Bruins.
Arizona State boasted and average of 445.8 yards per game last season, while UCLA currently averages 505.3 with Mazzone at the helm.
As the Bruins take on the Sun Devils this weekend, it’s time for Mazzone to have his own homecoming one week before UCLA has its homecoming game.
Mazzone brought over much of the successful playbook from Arizona State to UCLA ““ complete with swing passes, bubble screens ““ the whole nine yards.
But this may give the Sun Devils an upper hand defensively as they may know what to expect out of the Bruin offense.
“We have to be concerned that they have a great knowledge of our offense; they played against it every day in practice,” coach Jim Mora said. “We’ll have to change a few things to keep them off balance.”
But UCLA may have an element of unpredictability that Arizona State didn’t have last year in redshirt freshman quarterback Brett Hundley.
Last game against Utah, Hundley stretched out plays by stretching out his legs. Hundley had 68 yards on the ground and carried the ball 15 times when plays broke down.
“(Scrambling) helps a lot,” Hundley said. “Surely when things downfield may not be open then it’s sort of hard on the defense when they cover up everything downfield passing-wise, and then be able to take off running and now you have another threat that you have to stop.”
On the same page
Redshirt junior wide receiver Shaq Evans was the intended target on two of Hundley’s four interceptions against Cal.
Miscues and miscommunication caused those two interceptions.
But against Utah, Hundley and Evans were firing on all cylinders. Evans came up in the clutch early and often and accumulated 91 yards on four catches for the day, good for a 22.8 yards-per-catch average.
The highlight was a 64-yard touchdown pass from Hundley to Evans, the second-longest of the season thus far.
“Just having an experience like that (against Cal), you learn from your mistakes and you correct them in practice and the results come out on Saturday and that’s what happened against Utah.”
Torian White update
Redshirt freshman offensive tackle Torian White returned to practice without any issues after undergoing a heart procedure.
“He did quite a bit (today). … I talked to him last night after everything was done and he felt good. Mentally, there was no lingering effect. He’s not worried about anything ““ he feels good, he feels healthy,” Mora said.
“He’s missed some time obviously so we worked some other guys in at those positions just in case ““ but we always do that, contingency plans ““ but I think he’s going to be just fine. He played well against Utah and I think he wants to build on that.”