Shaquelle Evans sits atop the UCLA wide receiver corps as the team’s big-play aerial maven. The redshirt senior currently boasts 20-yard gains in five of his nine catches through two games, racking up the yardage through catching long balls or turning shorter passes into open-field gains.
A three-catch, 97-yard performance against Nebraska last Saturday included hauling in a 28-yard touchdown and turning about a 10-yard pass into a gain of 36 yards by turning upfield immediately after securing a catch and making Husker cornerback Ciante Evans miss a tackle.
Despite Evans’ penchant for breaking and avoiding would-be tackles, a punter has downed Evans, who doubles as a punt returner, in UCLA’s home and road openers. Evans, who described such plays as “unfortunate,” recalled moves by coverage units and a missed block as being factors that put him in a position to be tackled by players not known for their hitting prowess.
“I’m never going to let a punter tackle me one-on-one. If I ever get a one-on-one chance, you’ll see what happens,” said Evans, who UCLA coach Jim Mora views as one of college football’s most overlooked players on a national and regional level.
Evans and UCLA both look to avoid falling to an unlikely foe on Saturday, as New Mexico State travels to the Rose Bowl in a quest to snap a 14-game losing streak.
Turnover issues with previous first-team players have forced two new starters into the New Mexico State backfield: True freshman quarterback King Davis III and junior running back Brandon Betancourt are expected to make their first starts at the Rose Bowl. The pair step into the backfield for a team that has lost each of its first three games by at least 21 points. Over half of Davis III’s passing yards last week and a third of his yardage on the season came against UTEP on a 72-yard score to Betancourt.
Having already dispatched Nevada’s pistol offense and limited Nebraska’s running quarterback Taylor Martinez to negative yards, UCLA figures to be familiar with many of the concepts used by the mobile Davis III and New Mexico State’s offense. Since halftime of the season-opening Nevada game, UCLA has allowed a net total of 16 yards on 16 carries by starting quarterbacks.
Mora said that discipline in pass rushing and assessment of read-option plays will again be vital to stopping a player like Davis III, of whom UCLA possesses little film to study.
On defense, the Aggies employ a base 3-4 defense not unlike that of the Bruins. Despite the alignment similarity, Mora recognized how the matchup figures to test his offense’s adherence to football guidelines and its ability to adapt to exotic looks.
“(The Aggies) just do some things up front (on defense) that are a little unusual. Sometimes they’ll only have two down defensive linemen. They’ll have guys walked all over the place, so it really forces you to follow your rules,” Mora said. “We just depend on our rules. Every play or every defense, or every situation, you should have a list of rules that will carry you through anything you see. If we can’t, we go to the sideline and make an adjustment quickly.”
After an emotional 41-21 performance against Nebraska that Mora said was meant to honor the memory of fallen walk-on wide receiver Nick Pasquale, the Bruins also face the task of guarding against a letdown.
Sophomore left tackle Simon Goines said he feels that he can prevent big wins from bogging down his performance by subscribing to the “24-hour rule,” a principle that allows the team to savor the taste of victory or wallow in the agony of defeat for a single day.
Goines said that after game film is watched and analyzed, a prior game is no longer talked about within the team. Goines applied the rule to an even smaller time frame in the match against Nebraska, picking up his play in the second half during a game in which the Bruins trailed by as many as 18 points.
The offensive lineman said that he let go of a subpar start to the game that included him and his line mates not finishing pass blocks on a third and 12 that quarterback Brett Hundley converted with an improvised 13-yard scramble to preserve an eventual touchdown-scoring drive.
Despite acknowledging that he and his fellow Bruins “play at (their) best when (their) best is required,” Evans enters Saturday’s matchup knowing the importance of capitalizing on any and all opportunities to protect the legitimacy of his team.
“This is our opportunity to show everybody that we’re for real. People who still might have doubts in our program might say that was a fluke, that Nebraska just didn’t show up or something like that,” Evans said. “This is our chance to show everybody in the nation that this team is real, and that we’re here to stay.”