This Halloween, UCLA football finds itself in a very scary spot.
The Bruins have dropped four consecutive games after starting the season 3-0 and are in serious danger of losing a fifth, which would essentially dash any shot at a bowl game or even a .500 record.
This last week saw a player call out his coach on Twitter, the implementation of some form of a two-quarterback system and more nagging injuries to important players.
On Thursday, the news that starting senior defensive tackle Jerzy Siewierski has plantar fasciitis and is out indefinitely dealt another blow to the Bruins.
A win would go a long way toward righting the ship’s course.
“You don’t want to lose five straight in anything,” redshirt freshman quarterback Kevin Prince said. “We’ve been focusing on win four for a while now. … It will be big for us if we can get a win.”
But just like the last four games, a win won’t be easily obtained.
The Beavers boast one of the more potent offenses in the Pac-10 ““ one that is efficient in both running and passing.
In addition, a pair of brothers may cause the largest headache for defensive coordinator Chuck Bullough. Last year, in the Beaver’s 34-6 romping over UCLA, Jacquizz Rodgers torched the Bruins for 144 yards rushing, and his brother James had 115 yards of his own receiving. In a league full of good running backs, Jacquizz ranks second with 810 yards, and his brother, not to be outdone, leads the conference in all-purpose yards.
Both redshirt senior linebacker Reggie Carter and junior defensive tackle Brian Price identified Jacquizz as particularly hard to contain.
“Rodgers is tough,” Price said. “He can do it all. He’s fast, he’s quick, and if he needs to hit you in the mouth, he’ll hit you in the mouth.”
The Bruins have seen their share of good running backs, but perhaps they have not seen an offense as balanced as this one. That said, Bullough still sees the task of stopping the Beavers in straightforward terms.
“If you fit and do what you’re supposed to do and make the tackle when it’s in your gap, you’ll be successful,” he said. “The game of football is easy. It’s not very complicated.”
Recently, the problem has been that the defense has made things complicated for itself by missing tackles and holistically failing to stop the run.
“You see the guys improving and understand,” Bullough said. “But they’ve got to take it to another level. It’s got to be done the whole game. There’s always that one guy (from the other team) that does something to get us.”
But in the larger scheme of things, the defense, with the exception of a poor game against Cal, has not been the primary problem. Case in point: The defense forced five turnovers against Arizona last week, but the offense managed only six points and no touchdowns.
The Bruin’s total offense currently ranks 109th nationally, and the Bruins used three quarterbacks last week in an effort to put points on the board.
This week, Prince, who admits he has been inconsistent and said he was “not good” against Arizona will start, but coach Rick Neuhesiel has said freshman Richard Brehaut will get at least one meaningful series in during the first half.
“It’s not all Kevin Prince,” offensive coordinator Norm Chow said of his team’s offensive woes. “We dropped eight balls. We had eight penalties. So there’s a lot of blame to go around. Obviously the quarterback Kevin has to take a lot of it. He knows he didn’t play well.”
The formula for success against Oregon State, Chow added, is simple.
“There is no magic to it, these young guys want to do well,” he said. “They all feel bad we didn’t do well, and we have to keep working.”