Home team has been the hot bet when Cal and UCLA meet

The Bruins had only mustered 17 first downs against Arizona State and 19 at Stanford.

UCLA provided one Thursday night. “We lost a couple games and trying to figure out why, but we found a way to pull out of it, and I believe we will again”.

I wrote about this earlier in the week.

UCLA was led by a trio of players with two goals, including junior Ryder Roberts and sophomores Matt Farmer and Max Irving. In three of its four wins, it was leading by the end of the first quarter. In the two losses, it was trailing. They’re 29-0 when leading at halftime.

Cal entered the half trailing 26-10 to the Bruins, and were thoroughly dominated in every category. With plenty of time to make his reads, UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen recorded a school-record 34 completions. More on him soon.

In response to being asked if encouraging fans to wear black would help UCLA, California coach Sonny Dykes said, “that’s kind of the in-vogue thing in college football to have these type of things”. That’s an unlikely scenario.

“We’ve got to get back to playing physical football”. “It was just more effective”.

Moving past this season, you can rest assured that a lot will be expected next season from Cal, but whether or not they’ll deliver is another story. Part of that may have had to with Deon Hollins sidelined. Without Hollins, an outside linebacker who lines up as a fourth down lineman on most plays, UCLA would typically line up just three down linemen. He was sacked five times. And in that sense, the Bears were correct: The 2015 iteration is deeper and more experienced than the 2014 group that started 4-1, only to miss a bowl berth after dropping six of its final seven games.

Goff answered with a 1-yard touchdown pass to Darius Powe with 4:53 left in the third quarter.

As for UCLA, a win would not transform the Bruins’ season or vastly improve the team’s odds of winning the Pac-12 South. UCLA, should it win here, would root hard for USC (yep, the Bruins would have no choice) on Saturday against Utah. “There’s going to be a few plays that are frustrating”.

“He plays the next play”, Duarte said.

Players who remained were indoctrinated into a new standard: Dykes and his staff would punish players for academic infractions, with penalties including early-morning workouts not just for the offending student-athlete but also his entire position group – sometimes the player would be forced to take a knee and watch his positional grouping go through the workouts without him.

Goff showed he can make all the National Football League throws and his accuracy was good enough despite having receivers that struggled to get open. However, the fullness of a game’s magnitude is captured not by merely expressing what it means to the victor, but by noting how much it would hurt the loser. His skill set is unmatched. He was overshadowed Thursday night by UCLA freshman Josh Rosen (34-of-47, 399 yards, 3 TDs), but Rosen is at least two and half years away from any draft decision. The Bruins needed to ride his arm to a win, and they could.

An unforgettable storyline in the aftermath of the 16-point win was still: injuries. Beat a couple more and they’ll get something better than the Poinsettia or Foster Farms extravaganzas. Mora didn’t exactly sound optimistic after the game. UCLA allowed its three Pac-12 foes to rush for an average of 285 yards and 5.6 yards per attempt, victimized in particular by Arizona and Stanford – two of the conference’s top running teams. Savaiinaea has been a key factor replacing Myles Jack against the run. With five-regular season games left, coaches might want to consider shaking up their lineup in the trenches. Fuller is a productive receiver and kick returner.