Jim Mora didn’t see his team’s longest offensive play of the night, a 47-yard catch-and-run by redshirt sophomore tight end Austin Roberts late in the fourth quarter of UCLA’s Thursday night loss at Colorado.
After a series of animated exchanges along the sideline with assistant coaches, the UCLA head coach had made his way to a group of special teamers seated on the UCLA bench, his back turned to the field as Roberts rumbled down the right sideline.
Mora was still expressing his displeasure over the punt return touchdown the Bruins had allowed minutes earlier.
The return, a 68-yarder by Isaiah Oliver that put the Buffaloes up 20-10 with five and a half minutes left, came as a result of a mix-up in the play calling for the punt coverage team.
“We were supposed to be in a rugby punt, and we didn’t rugby,” said a frustrated Mora after the game. “We kicked it down the middle with no hang (time) and if you do that against a good punt returner, that’s what’s going to happen.”
Oliver had already hurt the Bruins early in the third quarter when he brought a punt 42 yards to set the Buffaloes up in the red zone for a short drive that would end in a field goal.
On that first big return, Oliver hinted at his ability to break away from the UCLA kick coverage unit, as he beat the first line of Bruins and nearly turned the corner before being forced out of bounds. Oliver said the touchdown came on the same play call.
“They’re on the same calls, just one was a middle return,” Oliver said. “The first one, I had a seam and I tried to get it to the outside and got run out of bounds. We were able to come back to that one later in the game and that’s what we did. We came back to it when we needed it and the seam was there this time.”
A sophomore defensive back, Oliver earned All-Pac-12 honors in the decathlon this spring after finishing seventh at the conference championships. His transition to punt returner hasn’t been seamless, said Buffalo coach Mike MacIntyre, but he came through when the team needed a big play Thursday.
“He wasn’t really good at catching them early; we kept working with him and working with him,” MacIntyre said. “He’s a decathlete. He has explosion there and we’ve seen that. He needs to be consistent at catching the ball. He did an excellent job tonight.”
UCLA’s special teams struggles extended to the kicking game as well, as the Bruins’ pair of kickers, freshman JJ Molson and redshirt freshman Andrew Strauch, combined to miss three field goals, with one of them – a 26-yarder by Molson – blocked by Buffalo cornerback Chidobe Awuzie.
The Bruins also blocked a Buffalo field goal, with redshirt freshman defensive lineman Rick Wade getting a hand on a fourth-quarter try from Colorado kicker Chris Graham.
But in the punting game, the Buffaloes thoroughly outclassed the Bruins, whose lone punt return went for just three yards, compared to Colorado’s 124 yards on five returns.
“The punt returns were big in our football game – our punt team did an excellent job. They did a good job of pinning them back,” MacIntyre said. “I think our punt return team did better than their punt return team. That was the difference in the game.”
Oliver’s touchdown was the Buffaloes’ first punt return score since 2005, a year which also marks the last time the Bruins took a punt back for a touchdown.