Offensive MVP: Paul Perkins
Coming into the season, redshirt junior Brett Hundley was billed as a potential Heisman candidate. As it turns out, he wasn’t even the best offensive player on his own team this season.
No, that honor is bestowed upon redshirt sophomore running back Paul Perkins, who emerged as one of the best running backs in the Pac-12, leading the conference in rushing yards.
There was nothing flashy to Perkins’ game, but he did just enough to confuse just about every defense he faced. Perkins finished with 93 or more yards in nine of UCLA’s 12 games, a level of stability that was huge for a UCLA offense that didn’t always have a consistent passing game.
Whenever the Bruins’ offense became sluggish, Perkins never wavered from his consistency, remaining a reliable option for 5 or 6 yards on every play. He finished the season averaging 6 yards per carry.
Perkins wasn’t overly fast this season, he didn’t have highlight-reel juke moves and he didn’t bowl many defenders over. But he finished the season with 1,378 rushing yards, filling the void Johnathan Franklin left two years ago.
Defensive MVP: Eric Kendricks
The redshirt senior linebacker emerged as the heart and soul of UCLA’s defense this season, a campaign that earned Kendricks a slew of honors, including the Butkus Award for the nation’s top linebacker. In his final year as a Bruin, Kendricks totaled 139 tackles, two sacks and three interceptions – including a one-handed grab that shifted the momentum in UCLA’s eventual 38-20 win over USC. In his 11-tackle performance against Stanford, Kendricks surpassed former UCLA linebacker Jerry Robinson as the school’s all-time leader in tackles, while his 96 solo tackles this season leads the conference.
Best freshman: Jaleel Wadood
When junior safety Randall Goforth left the second game of the season with a shoulder injury – who it was later announced would need season-ending surgery – UCLA’s secondary looked vulnerable.
When Wadood stepped in, though, he proved to be more than capable for the task. Although he had a few shaky moments in pass coverage, the freshman defensive back looked dominant as a tackler at times, laying hard hits and flying across the field to take down ball carriers.
Wadood finished the year with 51 tackles, the sixth-most on the team, and started seven games as a freshman. There’s plenty of room for him to grow, but based on his performance as a freshman, Wadood figures to have a bright future for the Bruins.
Most improved: Deon Hollins
After playing sparingly in his first year on campus, the outside linebacker emerged as the Bruins’ top pass rushing threat as a sophomore. Hollins led the team with six sacks, highlighted by a two-sack performance against Washington. After displaying poor edge containment in UCLA’s 30-28 loss to Utah, Hollins exhibited much improved play in that area of his game during the latter half of the season.
Offensive play of the year: Myles Jack’s touchdown run against Washington
The offense’s most dynamic threat might regularly lineup on defense. Though the sophomore linebacker’s rushing totals were down from when he was named Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year in 2013 as teams saw more game tape of Jack, he exhibited the type of game-breaking athletic skills no team can develop a game plan against. On third and three from Washington’s 28-yard line, Jack took the handoff and accelerated off tackle. He then floored former Bellevue High School teammate Budda Baker with a vicious stiff arm, spun off another defender before tight-roping down the sidelines for the score.
Defensive Play of the Year: Marcus Rios’ interception vs. Cal
The situation felt all too familiar for UCLA.
Two weeks prior, Utah mounted a last-minute scoring drive to take the lead, surging past a UCLA defense that couldn’t figure out how to stop it. The Utes held on to win.
So when Cal, down by two and with the ball, marched from its own 23 yard-line all the way to UCLA’s 36 in the final minutes of the game, deja vu was ready to sink in.
Marcus Rios changed that.
The redshirt sophomore cornerback perfectly played an overthrown pass to the end zone by Cal quarterback Jared Goff, snagging the ball and dragging a toe in bounds to end Cal’s hopes and save the game for UCLA.
The interception prevented the Bruins’ third-straight loss and prompted coach Jim Mora to give out his first-ever “game ball” at UCLA to Rios.
Best game: UCLA 20, Texas 17
While UCLA had a number of down-to-the-wire contests, none of them were quite like its September victory over Texas. Minus a star in Hundley – who exited early in the first quarter with a left elbow injury – the Bruins pulled together for their most unlikely win of the season. Perkins had his breakout performance, carrying the ball 24 times for 126 yards that included a 58-yarder on the opening play of the second half to put UCLA back in the game.
Meanwhile the defense delivered a pivotal three-and-out late in the fourth quarter following redshirt senior running back Jordon James’ fumble. Down 17-13, junior cornerback and all-around dangerous return man Ishmael Adams took the ensuing Longhorns punt 45 yards to put the Bruins offense in a great position to score.
And then of course there was Jerry Neuheisel. With his dad looking on from the Pac-12 studios, the redshirt sophomore second-string quarterback came on in relief and put together a gutty, gritty, resilient effort. Neuheisel completed 23 of 30 passes for 178 yards and two scores, capping the performance with a perfectly thrown ball to junior receiver Jordan Payton, who beat his defender on a stop-and-go and hauled in the 33-yard game-winning touchdown pass to stun the crowd in Dallas and everyone else watching the game. When it was all said and done, the Bruins left the field with a three-point victory, carrying Neuheisel on their shoulders.
Worst game: 31-10 loss to Stanford
Though the game with the two-point loss to Utah after a missed field goal by junior kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn and a second miss on his penalty-induced do-over may be the most painful of the year, given the context, the loss to Stanford wins “worst game”.
The Bruins had so much on the table heading into their final regular season game against Stanford. Fate had handed a string of losses to all the teams UCLA needed to lose, putting the Bruins atop the Pac-12 South and in a position to potentially compete for a playoff spot with a win in the Pac-12 championship game. Furthermore, UCLA seemed to be in the best position yet to finally beat its biggest nemesis in Stanford and prove it belonged among the conference’s elite squads.
Instead, everything the Bruins had built in the second half of the season fell apart. After a promising first few minutes that included a quick defensive stop and an easy touchdown, the rest of the game went horribly for UCLA.
The Bruins couldn’t generate a pass rush to slow down an on-fire Stanford quarterback Kevin Hogan, they couldn’t stop the ceaseless machine that is the Cardinal rushing attack and their offense could muster only three more points over the final 56 minutes.
Just about every aspect of UCLA’s game didn’t show up and the Bruins lost the game and their postseason hopes.
Biggest surprise: UCLA’s second-half surge
Six games into the season, UCLA sat at 4-2 and hardly looked the team ranked No. 7 in the preseason poll. The Bruins struggled against supposed inferior opponents as the offense was less than lackluster against Virginia while the defense surrendered 35 points to Memphis. That was before consecutive defeats at the hands of Utah and Oregon caused the pressure of preseason expectations to all but evaporate.
Maybe that was a good thing.
Following that, UCLA reeled off five straight wins, including three impressive victories against Arizona, Washington and USC respectively. In that span the Bruins took down two top 20 teams and walked out of Husky Stadium – a notoriously hostile environment for visiting teams – with a blowout win of their own. Following their takedown of the Trojans, the Bruins climbed to No. 8 in the college football playoff poll and were playing as well as any team in the country.
Biggest disappointment: Myles Jack
Disappointment may be the wrong word here, seeing as Jack still finished second on the team with 80 tackles, but after becoming something of a cult legend his freshman year, winning both offensive and defensive Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, the linebacker never seemed to dominate games this year the way he did as a freshman.
To be fair, much of that isn’t his fault. Last season, given all the injuries to the running backs, Jack was asked to take on a much more significant role on offense, rushing 38 times for 267 yards and seven touchdowns in less than half a season. This year, with a full season on both sides of the ball, Jack had just 28 carries for 113 yards and three scores.
The smaller workload is reasonable, given the success of Paul Perkins and how coach Jim Mora admitted to overusing Jack on offense at times last season. But with the amount of raw talent Jack has carrying the ball, never more evident than on his spectacular touchdown run against Washington, he needed to make more of an impact offensively and make use of that talent.
Defensively, Jack was solid though less frequently game-changing. He had some huge moments that won’t show up in stat sheets, such as locking down USC wide receiver Nelson Agholor in pass coverage, but he still seemed to leave so much on the table given his level of talent.
Jack talked over the offseason about putting work into improving his pass rush, yet he finished the season with zero sacks. He also was often a culprit of the blown gap assignments that plagued the defense for the first half of the year. He would often try to make all the plays himself and do too much, leaving his gap and giving a hole for the offense to run through.
Jack is a special talent, and while he showed some of that this year, he didn’t quite take a big step forward in his development, finishing with just four more tackles than his freshman season. With the potential and ability he has, expectations for Jack are very high.
Compiled by Kevin Bowman and Jordan Lee, Bruin Sports senior staff.