TEMPE, Ariz. “”mdash; UCLA coach Jim Mora said last week that he wasn’t sure if having an extra week off necessarily matters in helping prepare for the next opponent.
At the outset of UCLA’s 45-43 win over Arizon4a State on Saturday, it looked like the bye week hurt the Bruins more than it helped them. Granted, they won on the road against a good team in thrilling fashion, but the start of the game was a reminder that UCLA is a ways off from planting its flag at the top of the mountain.
It started with the coin toss, a usually pointless exercise between the teams’ captains to see who will get the ball first. What most fans don’t realize is if you win the toss, you aren’t only given the option to kick off or receive like the Madden video game series would have you believe. Teams who want the ball in the second half can elect to defer the option to halftime, at which point they would elect to receive.
If you simply say that you want to kick off rather than defer, the team that lost the toss would get the ball to open the game as well as to start the second half, which is exactly what happened on Saturday.
Redshirt senior punter and captain Jeff Locke won the opening toss and made the mistake of saying UCLA wanted to kick off, essentially giving Arizona State a free possession to start the second half, which the Sun Devils cashed in on with a field goal. When Mora tried to appeal to the official (whose microphone was left on for the entire stadium to hear), it was too late.
As someone who knows his way around “Madden NFL “˜13,” I once told an intramural flag football referee that I wanted to kick off but he asked me if I was sure and let me change my decision. That’s not the case in Football Bowl Subdivision college football.
Mora, by his own admission, was rallying the troops in the locker room for too long and his captains were late to the coin flip. Locke ““ who never participates in locker room festivities or the coin flip because he’s warming up ““ was the only captain in sight for the referee to call on.
Locke should have known better, but the blame here comes back to Mora. He said the others were late because he likes his captains to come out with the rest of the team instead of a minute earlier to handle the coin toss, a decision that nearly cost him the game.
Mora called this game a learning experience, and you can bet he’ll learn a lot from that flub. He also said coming from behind twice in one game gives “belief in yourself as a player, in the systems you are installing offensively, defensively and on special teams.” But if Mora cuts his rah-rah session short by 20 seconds or allows his captains to leave early like every other team, the Bruins only have to come from behind once and save themselves from blowing a game that they should have won easily.
The coin flip wasn’t the only bungle that almost knocked UCLA out of the game before five minutes went by. After having two weeks to shore up the dire punt return situation, redshirt freshman Steven Manfro muffed his fourth punt of the season ““ his third in three weeks ““ which led to ASU’s first touchdown.
“We have to find a way, a method, something, to take care of the problems we are having on punt return,” Mora said.
Suddenly, former Bruin Taylor Embree’s notorious fair catches with 30 yards of open field ahead of him don’t seem like such a bad thing.
There were certainly some positives to take away from Tempe, Ariz., namely that UCLA is now tied with USC for first place in the Pac-12’s South division and freshman kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn is capable of making a game-winning kick. Redshirt freshman quarterback Brett Hundley led a game-winning drive and the Bruins weren’t overwhelmed by a tough road atmosphere like they were in Berkeley a few weeks ago.
But as Mora is quick to remind everyone, this team is young and so is he (in college football years). They’re making progress but they have a long way to go.
Do you choose to kick or receive in Madden? Email Sam Strong at sstrong@media.ucla.edu or tweet him at @SamStrong.