Tag: UCLA Bruins football

UCLA Football Schedule 2022: 3 Things To Know

UCLA football schedule. The 2022 schedule with 3 things to know

UCLA football schedule 2022: Who does UCLA miss on the Pac-12 schedule and what are 3 things to know?

2022 UCLA Football Schedule

Sept 3 Bowling Green

Sept 10 Alabama State

Sept 17 South Alabama

Sept 24 at Colorado

Oct 1 Washington

Oct 8 Utah

Oct 15 OPEN DATE

Oct 22 at Oregon

Oct 29 Stanford

Nov 5 at Arizona State

Nov 12 Arizona

Nov 19 USC

Nov 25 at Cal

2022 College Football Schedules: All 131 Teams

UCLA Football Schedule What To Know: Who do the Bruins miss from the Pac-12 North Division?

UCLA has to play Oregon, and it’s a road game.

At least it has a week off to rest up and get ready, but the away game to Eugene is one of the toughest draws in the South. Missing Oregon State and Washington State isn’t too bad, but Cal should be dangerous, Washington should be better, and Stanford will soon be a lot stronger.

In the South, the Bruins get Utah and USC at home. That sort of makes up for having to go to Oregon.

UCLA Football Schedule What To Know: We’re not exactly extending ourselves, are we, Bruins?

The general rule of thumb is that any Power Five team should have one game against another Power Five team, and a restaurant quality date with some solid Group of Five squad – like a good team from the Mountain West.

Nope.

To be fair, UCLA did play LSU early last year. But seriously …

Bowling Green, Alabama State, South Alabama.

That’s it?! Don’t you like your fans?

UCLA Football Schedule What To Know: What does it all really mean?

There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for UCLA to have anything but a good year with this schedule.

There are three light scrimmages to ease into the Pac-12 season that begins with two teams – Colorado and Washington – that didn’t go bowling last season.

Try this out. UCLA is playing nine games against teams that didn’t go bowling last season.

Nine.

The only three that did were Utah, Oregon, and Arizona State, and all three lost.

Yeah, USC will be better, and yeah, going to Oregon and Arizona State won’t be layups, but with this slate and one road game before October 22nd, there’s no reason for any concern.

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2022 College Football Schedules: All 131 Teams

UCLA Bruins: CFN College Football Preview 2021

College Football News Preview 2021: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the UCLA season with what you need to know.

College Football News Preview 2021: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the UCLA season with what you need to know.

– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak

– What You Need To Know: Offense | Defense
– Top Players | Keys To The Season
– What Will Happen, Win Total Prediction
– UCLA Schedule Analysis
– UCLA Bruins Previews
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015

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2020 Record: 3-4 overall, 3-4 in Pac-12
Head Coach: Chip Kelly, 4th year, 10-21 (56-28 overall)
2020 CFN Final Ranking: 32
2020 CFN Preview Ranking: 57
2019 CFN Final Ranking: 97

UCLA Bruins College Football Preview 2021: Offense

– The offense is starting to work. It has taken a few years, and it’s not the high-octane thrill ride a Chip Kelly attack is supposed to be, but the pieces are in place now to do even more.

The 2020 version cranked up 455 yards and 35 points per game, scoring 34 or more in every game but the wins over Arizona and Arizona State.

There’s balance, there are options, and there’s a whole lot of experience and depth to play around with. Ten starters are expected back, but it’s actually an even better situation.

The quarterback situation is set. Dorian Thompson-Robinson has been around from the start of the Kelly era, growing into the role as a decent runner and more accurate, effective passer.

Main backup Chase Griffin returns, too, but Washington transfer Ethan Garbers is a big talent to groom for the near future.

– Leading yardage receiver Greg Dulcich is back, and the 6-4, 242-pound junior combines tight end forces with the 268-pound Mike Martinez.

The wide receivers are strong, too, with junior Kyle Philips leading the team – for the second year in a row – with 38 catches as a midrange target. There’s nice size and experience across the roster.

– Leading rushers Demetric Felton is gone, but Brittain Brown is more than fine carrying the load – he averaged 6.6 yards per carry with 543 yards and four scores – Keegan Jones can add a little flash, and in the mix is Michigan veteran Zach Charbonnet to bring more punch.

All five starters return to the offensive line that paved the way for the nation’s 12th-best running game and was decent enough in pass protection to get by. There’s a decent mix of size, experience, and athleticism for this offense around all-star caliber center Sam Marrazzo. Don’t blow this off as par for the course – it took a long, LONG time for UCLA to have a decent offensive front.

– What You Need To Know: Defense
– Top Players | Keys To The Season
– What Will Happen, Win Total Prediction
– UCLA Schedule Analysis

NEXT: UCLA Bruins College Football Preview 2021: Defense

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USC versus UCLA in Week 1: smart move by the Pac-12

This is wise.

The Pac-12 Conference listened to Trojans Wire! Mirabile dictu, as older Men of Troy might have said in their native Latin.

We urged the Pac-12 — back on July 12, when none of us knew what the 2020 conference schedule looked like — to put USC-UCLA and other rivalry games early in the season rather than late. It made all the sense in the world:

Why not make sure that the biggest game of the season is played? Why not make sure that in the early portion of a season — when uncertainty about COVID-19 is especially high — teams within the same state get to play each other, which makes it easier for governors and other local officials to not have to worry about cross-state travel? This makes total sense, and the Pac-12 took these points of advice to heart with its newly-released 2020 football schedule.

Yes, it’s real: USC and UCLA will play in Week 1 of the adjusted schedule on Sept. 26.

Now, Angelenos won’t have to worry (as much) about whether the Battle for Los Angeles gets played in late November. Yes, if an outbreak occurs, this game could be postponed, but that’s part of the point as well: The league is giving the rivalry games a better chance of being played, because the act of putting them at the front of the schedule provides more chances to be made up at a later date. If the game was left to its normal late-November slot, there would be fewer chances to make it up in the event of a postponement.

This is the forward-thinking approach we don’t often see from the Pac-12. The league has displayed amateur-hour levels of incompetence and ignorance in crafting its football schedules over the years. At least in this one specific instance — putting rivalry games at the start of the schedule and not the end — the Pac-12 got it right.

Sometimes, life actually offers a pleasant surprise. How’s that for a 2020 plot twist?

What if a Power Five program runs into a governor-ordered shutdown?

Good question.

Earlier this week, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham sent a letter to leadership at both schools strongly advising them to suspend any contact sports, including football, for the upcoming fall season. The news was first reported by the Albuquerque Review Journal and could be an interesting peg to fall out in the upcoming 2020 college football season. Right now it’s New Mexico asking their schools to not play football, what if tomorrow it’s Arizona or California?

When schools began their move to conference-only scheduling, the idea was to keep it simple. It would allow schools to have an easier time doing tracking and tracing if a player were to come down with COVID-19 or at least that’s the theory. But conference-only isn’t going to solve every problem and if the above question were to become a reality, conference-only testing would not save California from having to shut down large athletic events.

New Mexico is a small domino, but it’s a domino nonetheless. The Coronavirus is only getting worse and states are starting to see dramatic rises in confirmed cases, but also death tolls. Playing the season is going to be a challenge and if states have to do a random shutdown in the middle of the season for safety events, it’s going to make it very awkward for the teams that were supposed to play them suddenly having to sit around and not play because USC, UCLA, San Diego St., San Jose St., Stanford, Cal, and others can’t play by order of Governor Gavin Newsome.

This season is anything but a sure thing. We’re finding out first hand just how tough this is going to be and the NCAA hasn’t even come close to announcing a comprehensive testing plan and recovery plan for infected athletes. They’re telling students to report and having them sign waivers, but they’re not doing anything to protect them and provide them with a stable environment, largely free of the Coronavirus. If this is the NCAA’s plan, it’s going to a very, very, very short season.

USC playing UCLA twice? It’s not ridiculous in a pandemic

Stop. It’s not insane to do this.

If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times: Normal solutions don’t apply to a pandemic and this very weird, unsettled, scary time we live in. Ideas which would be crazy in normal periods shouldn’t be considered ridiculous in these adjusted circumstances.

The Pac-12 has already moved to a conference-only football game schedule for 2020, but it hasn’t yet announced the details of its plan.

A story on Sunday from the Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune underscores the point that creative options exist for filling out a conference schedule.

Davis Potter reported on Wyoming’s uncertainties, and what the school’s athletic director, Tom Burman, is considering while he waits for the Big 12, SEC, and ACC to reveal their scheduling plans for the fall.

One option on the table for Wyoming is playing foremost rival Colorado State twice.

If you can’t play a full 12-game season, and if you can’t have teams outside your conference on the slate, why the hell NOT play your rival twice to spice things up and generate more local interest in the program?

Keep in mind that while we won’t see anything close to full stadium capacity at games this fall — 30 percent capacity would seem to be at the HIGH end of possibilities at this point; that would rate as a real achievement, while 20 percent seems like a more likely figure — getting 30 percent of fans into a stadium rates as a lot better than having no fans at all.

Rivalry games being played twice — as opposed to filling an open date with an FCS school — makes sense in terms of attracting fans to a stadium, even in reduced numbers.

Moreover, the genius of a two-rivalry-game plan is that fans who couldn’t attend the first of the two games could attend the second one. Think of this as USC and UCLA playing eight quarters in front of 38,000 people — 18,000 in one four-quarter game at the Coliseum and 20,000 in the other four-quarter game at the Rose Bowl.

It sounds stupid in normal times… but again, these times aren’t normal.

If the Pac-12 wants a 10-game conference-only game schedule — the regular nine games plus one add-on — would it be better for USC to play Washington State or Oregon State, the two teams currently not scheduled to face the Trojans in 2020, OR…

would it be better for USC to simply circle back and play UCLA a second time?

I know which option most USC fans would choose.

College Football News Preview 2020: UCLA Bruins

College Football News Preview 2020: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the UCLA Bruins season with what you need to know.

College Football News Preview 2020: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the UCLA Bruins season with what you need to know.

– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak

– What You Need To Know: Offense | Defense
– Top Players | Key Players, Games, Stats
– What Will Happen, Win Total Prediction
– Schedule Analysis
– UCLA Previews 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015

2019 Record: 4-8 overall, 4-5 in Pac-12
Head Coach: Chip Kelly, 3rd year, 7-17
2019 CFN Final Opinion Ranking: 51
2019 CFN Final Season Formula Ranking: 97
2019 CFN Preview Ranking: 34

No one knows what’s going to happen to the 2020 college football season. We’ll take a general look at where each team stands – doing it without spring ball to go by – while crossing our fingers that we’ll all have some well-deserved fun this fall. Hoping you and yours are safe and healthy.

5. College Football News Preview 2020: UCLA Bruins Offense 3 Things To Know

– Eventually this offense is going to work … right? After all, it’s Chip Kelly, offensive coordinator Justin Frye also works with the O line, and the youth movement from the last few years might finally start to pay off.

The Bruins averaged over 400 yards per game, but they only managed to come up with more than 18 points six times. There were major power outages, way too many turnovers, and lousy pass protection that didn’t help the overall cause – the Bruins were 120th in the nation in sacks allowed.

CFN in 60 Video: UCLA Bruins Preview
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Start there. Kelly and Frye inherited a bad offensive line situation, and they haven’t been able to make it a whole lot stronger. By the end of last year they started two freshmen and one sophomore, and now they get three starters back – Murray, the then-sophomore, has transferred to Oklahoma – who should know what they’re doing.

– Finally, the backfield might just be good enough to do some steady damage. QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson is in his third year, and while it’s been rocky, he has had his moments. the 507-yard, five touchdown day against Washington State was fantastic – but just not enough of them.

He threw for over 2,700 yards with 21 touchdowns and 12 picks, but he’ll be pushed hard by former Washington transfer Colson Yankoff, a 6-4 former star recruit who can run. Also potentially in the mix is one of the team’s top recruits, Parker McQuarrie out of New Hampshire – a 6-7, 208-pound pro-style bomber who might just be thrown to the wolves right away.

RB Joshua Kelley is off being a Los Angeles Charger, but Demetric Felton is a veteran who finished second on the team with 331 yards. Martell Irby is a smallish quick back who fits the system, and in comes Brittain Brown from Duke, a bigger back who can do a little of everything.

– Tight end Devin Asiasi took off and now he’s a New England Patriot, but the top four other targets are back. Leading receiver Kyle Philips is back after catching 60 passes for 681 yards and five scores – he has high-volume potential – and 6-4 junior Chase Cota is a big target on the outside.

The depth took a hit, though, with three tight ends transferring and WR Theo Howard leaving for Oklahoma. Even so, there are enough decent parts to start doing more for the passing game.

NEXT: College Football News Preview 2020: UCLA Bruins Defense 3 Things To Know

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