Every UCLA football game day, whether at the Rose Bowl or on the road, has so much more to it than a win or a loss. That’s why each post-game Monday, the Daily Bruin will break down the Bruins’ most recent game, outlining the good, the bad and the verdict for their performance.
This week, we take a closer look at UCLA’s 42-12 win over Virginia Tech in the Sun Bowl on Tuesday at Sun Bowl Stadium.
The Good: Brett Hundley’s production
Redshirt sophomore quarterback Brett Hundley managed to showcase different parts of his body in the Sun Bowl’s two halves.
In the first half, his legs were on display as they churned upfield for two rushing touchdowns and 168 yards. Hundley avoided pressure well and it paid off, as he consistently found seams in the middle of the Virginia Tech defense for a number of sizeable gains in an otherwise minimal run game.
In the second half, it was Hundley’s right arm in the spotlight. With 7:31 left to play in the game, he hit freshman Y receiver Thomas Duarte for an 8-yard score. With his team up 35-12, Hundley elected not to run out the clock, instead opting for a play-action pass that sprung redshirt senior wide receiver Shaquelle Evans into the wide-open field. Hundley placed a ball perfectly into Evans’ hands for a 59-yard touchdown.
Hundley finished the game with 226 yards through the air, earning an adjusted QB rating of 97.8 out of 100.
“It was a special game,” Hundley said. “We played well as an offense. The first half was up-and-down … but we had to make some adjustments and when we did, we got things going.”
The Bad: Special Teams Blunders
In a 42-12 victory that featured a diverse array of scoring, even a defensive touchdown, finding the bad requires some nitpicking. But on two separate occasions, UCLA special teams faltered.
After an 11-play drive that led the Bruins from their own 19-yard line to the Hokies’ 18, sophomore kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn missed a 36-yard field goal, leaving UCLA with nothing to show for its efforts. The Bruins wouldn’t get another opportunity to score until Hundley broke loose on an 86-yard touchdown scamper that broke a 7-7 tie.
With 9:38 left to play in the game and UCLA backed up to its own end zone, freshman punter Sean Covington unleashed a booming punt well beyond midfield, but didn’t quite have his spatial awareness down. Covington stepped out of the back of the end zone to surrender a safety to the Hokies, who later produced nothing with their free possession.
The Verdict: Dominant consecutive wins close out season properly
UCLA’s final two games and wins – 42-12 over Virginia Tech and 35-14 against USC – provided the all-around dominant performances that had been largely missing from the teams’ season. Not since 38 straight points against Nebraska has UCLA looked so imposing against an opposing team. Consecutive victories after Thanksgiving brought UCLA its first 10-win season since 2005.
In keeping with the season’s trend of performing markedly better in one half than the other, UCLA closed its final two games much the way they closed the year: best performances at the end. The Bruins outscored the Hokies and Trojans by a combined score of 49-12 in the second half, versus 28-14 in the first half. The Sun Bowl saw the Bruins wait around a little longer to break out, as the team forced both of its turnovers and scored its 28 second-half points in the fourth quarter.
That UCLA put up such dominant performances an entire month apart speaks to growth by a program headed by Jim Mora, who began bowl game preparation sooner than he did in 2012, when the Bruins came up flat in a 23-point drubbing against Baylor.
Mora expressed throughout the year that each season represents a different story, and the Bruins can hardly be expected to ride this two-game high into the next season opener. Yet, earning decisive wins, after the end of the team’s BCS dreams, steers UCLA forward by representing another step toward establishing a winning culture.
Player of the Game: Quarterback Brett Hundley
Brett Hundley showcased quite the sampler of his abilities as a playmaker at the Sun Bowl, racking up 387 total yards of offense and four touchdowns in El Paso, Texas. His 161 ground yards comprised much of UCLA’s gains through three quarters. The Bruins’ leading yardage man on the ground scored the team’s only first-half points on runs of seven and 86 yards that respectively showcased his wiggle and deceptive straightline speed. Each of his first six carries, mostly improvisational runs, resulted in a first down or score, with his shortest non-scoring run earning 12 yards. Hundley also lit up the scoreboard with his last two pass attempts against the nation’s then-No. 8 scoring defense: an 8-yard pass to the corner of the end zone to Thomas Duarte and a long ball to Shaquelle Evans for a 59-yard score.
Hundley also flashed the ability to engineer a systematic drive on a team in need of a spark.
On the drive that gave UCLA a 21-10 lead early in the fourth quarter, he completed all six pass attempts, three of them to wide receivers and four of them for first downs, for 80 yards. On all of his other 11 drives, just once did Hundley complete more than a single attempt or surpass one aerial first down on a single possession. In the second half, Virginia Tech shored up the perimeter of its defense to limit the quarterback to two carries for four yards in the second half.
Quote of the Week: Jim Mora, when asked if quarterback Brett Hundley would benefit from another year at UCLA:
“The National Football League, as Jerry Glanville says, stands for ‘Not For Long.’ That’s not just for coaches, that’s for players.”
Compiled by Andrew Erickson and Emilio Ronquillo, Bruin Sports senior staff.