On Monday, UCLA football coach Jim Mora said that his team had put the 56-35 loss to Stanford behind them and applied the lessons they learned.
The only issue is that few of those key lessons can be applied to the Bruins’ next opponent: the California Golden Bears.
The Cardinal obliterated the Bruin defense last Thursday for 310 rushing yards and four rushing touchdowns. In the Bears’ last outing, a close loss to Utah, the team accumulated only 127 rushing yards, but threw for 340.
“That’s kinda the nature of the Pac-12, every game’s a little different whether it’s offensively or defensively kind of the schemes that you see. In terms of two different styles of offense, don’t think you can get any more radical than these two,” Mora said. “Stanford was like old school football and Cal is like new school football. I tell you, one similarity is both of them have outstanding quarterbacks.”
This week’s outstanding quarterback is Jared Goff, a 2015 Heisman Trophy contender who is leading Cal to its best season start since 2007. He is second in the Pac-12 in touchdown passing, and ranks third in passer efficiency and completions per game.
“As an observer of football, it’s been fun to watch him mature,” Mora said. “As someone who has to play him on (Thursday) – it’s not that fun.”
While UCLA was preoccupied last week, trying to contain Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey, who exploded for 243 rushing yards, the Bruins are tasked Thursday with reading a resilient quarterback who knows how to score.
“He’s throwing four (five) interceptions (against Utah) and you never would have known it,” Mora said. “He has that great mindset that I think all quarterbacks have is that they’re able to put a bad play behind them and keep going (or) put a good play behind them and keep going.”
Another one of the Bears’ advantages lies in the fact that the team is coming out of a bye week after falling to Pac-12 leader Utah two weeks ago. While the Bruins have had less than a week to recover from their blowout, Cal has had double the time to reassess and rearrange.
A lingering question that UCLA has been unable to assess since leaving Stanford Stadium is what the team will do about its punting situation. Senior punter Matt Mengel only averaged 37.8 yards per punt against Stanford, allowing the Cardinal to easily win the field position game.
Mora said that Mengel has put work into improving in the week since the Stanford matchup, but the question remains as to whether it will be enough – particularly when a quarterback such as Goff is easily capable of exploiting favorable field position for touchdowns.
Compiled by Claire Fahy, Bruin Sports senior staff.