SALT LAKE CITY — There was a role reversal for the UCLA football team on Saturday against Utah.
In the past two games, UCLA offensive linemen were the ones being duped. They were the ones who had to face all of those stemming defensive fronts and all those bluffed cadences at the line of scrimmage. It led to multiple misplays and 13 false starts.
On Saturday, the story was entirely different: The Bruins were the ones creating havoc for the Utes’ offensive line.
Starting early in the second half – after Utah had a 71-yard scoring drive – UCLA initiated its plan to foil the Utah offensive line, which had been dominant to that point.
“We started to play games with our (defensive) tackles and our (defensive) ends,” said defensive coordinator Tom Bradley.
In particular, junior defensive end Takkarist McKinley started moving sporadically before the snap. He would go from the 4i-technique to the 3-technique position as soon as he heard Utah’s cadence, attempting to befuddle Utah quarterback Travis Wilson. The goal was to create confusion in a Ute backfield that had gouged the Bruins up until that point.
“They had a little bit of success with the zone read, but in the second half, we were able to make (those) adjustments,” McKinley said. “(The defensive linemen) got to slide over … just to mess with (Utah’s) mind a little bit, so they don’t know who is blocking who.”
Once UCLA’s defensive linemen created commotion, the Utah offense completely stagnated. The Utes averaged 5.2 yards per play over their first five drives, but only 2.2 yards per play over their final five drives – when UCLA initiated its new scheme.
“(That was) as well as we’ve played all year on the defensive line,” Bradley said.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, UCLA’s offensive line handled confusion as well as it had all year. The Utes’ defensive line tried to goad the Bruins’ offensive line on several occasions, but the Bruins didn’t commit one false-start penalty. The solid pre-snap execution was a stark contrast from the past two games, which were filled with penalties.
The big difference for UCLA, said redshirt senior center Jake Brendel, was the silent count. The Bruins used it for the entire game, preventing the hostile road crowd from becoming a factor.
“(The silent count) really helped, just because then I’m in control of the snap count instead of the quarterback,” Brendel said. “We trained it in this past week in practice. That was one of our points of emphasis.”
With the UCLA offensive line playing penalty-free and the defensive line creating confusion, the Bruins appear to be in a good place to beat the USC Trojans for the fourth-straight time next weekend.
That is, unless there’s another role reversal.