SAN ANTONIO — Amid the hectic schedule of bowl festivities and game preparation, UCLA may not have had time to watch many bowl games the 36 hours before its matchup against Kansas State in the Valero Alamo Bowl Friday.
UCLA may not have seen Michigan State overcome a 20-point deficit to beat Baylor in Thursday’s Cotton Bowl. They might not have watched Houston come back from down 25 to beat Pittsburgh in the Armed Forces Bowl earlier on Friday.
But after running away to a 31-6 lead by halftime, the No. 14 Bruins learned on their own that no lead is safe.
The No. 11 Wildcats (9-4) dominated the second half, outscoring the Bruins 29-9, but the Bruins avoided the same fate as the Spartans and Panthers: UCLA held on to win 40-35 and finished the season with 10 wins for the second consecutive year for the first time since 1997 and 1998.
UCLA’s first half was near perfect.
The Bruins drove 77 yards on their first drive, capping it with a 10-yard touchdown scramble by redshirt junior quarterback Brett Hundley, playing in his last collegiate game.
They followed it with a 50-yard drive ending in a field goal, then went 71 yards on their next possession for another Hundley rushing score to take a 17-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.
“I was surprised, honestly. We came out the gates on them,” said junior wide receiver Jordan Payton. “We had just a lot of built-up frustration and everything was just piled into one thing and we just came out the gates.”
Equally as surprising was the drastically altered style with which the Bruins played. The play-calling was creative and effective, keeping the Wildcats guessing. The normally slow-starting offense was blistering from the get-go and playing at a faster tempo. And the defense, which often struggled to apply pressure this season, was constantly in Kansas State’s backfield rushing passes.
UCLA’s 25-point halftime advantage, as well as its all-around superior play, had the Bruins looking like runaway winners. Kansas State wasn’t as convinced.
The Wildcats opened the third quarter with a scoring drive lasting 7:23, then got the ball back 27 seconds later after recovering a fumble by redshirt sophomore running back Paul Perkins. Kansas State finished the quarter with 11:08 of possession and just 10 points from being the third team in two days to win after trailing by 20 or more.
“I had visions of Stanford,” said offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone of Kansas State’s third quarter possession-hoarding.
The second half, ultimately, was UCLA returning to itself.
In UCLA’s four second-half possessions – excluding its final possession in which Hundley just kneeled to run out the clock – its play-calling looked less inspired and more repetitive. The team’s inability to play a complete game – a constant struggle this season – reappeared, and the secondary was torn apart by Wildcat senior wide receiver Tyler Lockett, who finished with 164 yards and two touchdowns.
The Bruins were saved from a complete collapse by two clutch runs.
After the Wildcats’ 15 straight points, the Bruins avoided quickly giving the ball right back with a huge 40-yard scramble by Hundley on a third and 11, setting up an eventual field goal.
Then, following another Kansas State touchdown to draw within six, Paul Perkins got his turn in the spotlight, sprinting straight up the middle for the clincher, a 67-yard touchdown run to put UCLA back up 12.
The Wildcats would score again, but the game was already out of reach, the Bruins fending off their late push.
Despite UCLA’s second-half struggles and it nearly blowing its big lead, coach Jim Mora was fiery in defense of his team.
“It’s not easy. When you’re playing the 11th-ranked team in the country, if they don’t fight back, they don’t deserve to be 11th,” Mora said. “Anyone that has a question about us closing out a game, walk right out onto that field and look up at the scoreboard and tell me who won the damn game.”
The score, 40-35, was another narrow margin of victory for UCLA, a fitting end for a team that finished the season with eight of its 13 games decided by 10 or fewer points.
For a Bruin team expected by many to contend for a playoff spot before the season, UCLA’s inability to consistently secure convincing wins throughout the season was an indicator it didn’t belong in the playoff conversation. Given the towering preseason expectations, an Alamo Bowl win may seem trifling compared to competing in a New Year’s Six bowl.
The Bruins didn’t see it that way.
Whatever the margin, there were only two sets of numbers Mora cared about in his final press conference of the season: the higher score next to UCLA’s name on the stat sheet and the 10-3 record below it.
“Yeah, we like to blow people out but you find out who you are as a man when it’s tough like that, and we won, and that’s the objective,” Mora said. “We won.”