In what was a somewhat close game through three quarters of play, the Arizona football team fell against UCLA 34-16 on Saturday night to extend their losing streak to 17 games. Here are three stats that stood out from the game.
329 rushing yards
It seemed like UCLA got whatever they wanted against the Wildcats’ run defense, rumbling for 329 yards on the ground. The Wildcats weren’t far behind the Bruins in total yards (411 for UCLA and 362 for Arizona), but the rushing yards were the biggest difference maker as Arizona managed 122 yards on the ground themselves. The interesting part about this is usually a dominant running game leads to dominating the time of possession, but the Wildcats actually held the ball slightly longer than UCLA did as the Bruins just compiled so many huge plays on the ground.
Converting in UCLA’s territory
Arizona had no issue moving the ball down the field early in the game with Jordan McCloud under center, but converting deep in the Bruins territory was the biggest problem for Arizona. They opened up the game with back-to-back drives moving the ball deep into UCLA’s territory, but were limited to field goals on both of those drives. The only touchdown for the Wildcats was on a trick play (a great call at that) with Jamarye Joiner tossing a touchdown to Michael Wiley towards the end of the first half. They continued to move the ball well in the third quarter, but UCLA held Arizona to another field goal before McCloud went down with an injury to open the fourth quarter when everything went downhill for any momentum Arizona had.
RELATED: Arizona loses to UCLA by 18 points
12 penalties
The Wildcats shot themselves in the foot way too often, most notably on a number of false starts where the Bruins would make adjustments on the defensive line right before the snap which would seemingly rattle the Wildcats offensive lineman. UCLA had a number of crucial penalties themselves, but the penalties clearly hurt the Wildcats more.
Arizona heads out to Boulder, Colorado, next weekend for a game against the University of Colorado Boulder with kickoff scheduled for 12:30 p.m. MST.
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