PASADENA, Calif, — A look at Arizona’s 66-10 loss to UCLA at the Rose Bowl on Saturday
The good: …
Uh, punter Kyle Dugandzic had a good day?
Ka’Deem Carey’s 2-yard touchdown run in the third quarter was nice, too.
The defense seemingly took the night off, but linebacker Marquis Flowers had his second straight impactful game, garnering 13 tackles, one sack and two tackles for loss.
The bad: Struggles all around
UCLA might have covered the spread. The Bruins scored on 10-of-14 possessions, including nine touchdowns.
“We’ve had a hard time stopping a lot of folks this year,” UA head coach Rich Rodriguez said. “We knew that. We know where we’re at defensively. Our guys have hung in there before, but tonight it was a battle. We couldn’t get any stops.”
When UCLA jumped out to a 14-0 lead, games against Oklahoma State and USC came to mind as Arizona was able to rally back from similar deficits and get the upset wins.
But then, the Bruins scored again. And again. And again. It took until 6:47 remaining in the second quarter on a 28-yard John Bonano field goal for Arizona to even put a dent in the score. At that point, it was 28-3. By halftime, it was 42-3 and at that point UCLA had 371 yards and 22 first downs at that point, the Wildcats had 83 and six.
After Carey’s touchdown brought it “within” 35 points, at 45-10, UCLA didn’t slow up, scoring 21 consecutive points to close out the game.
From top to bottom, it was an ugly game, especially for Arizona’s offense which came into the game as the fourth-best in the nation.
Both Matt Scott and Carey had season-low yardage totals, Scott had 124 passing yards and zero touchdowns while Carey added 54 yards on the ground.
Two weeks after scoring Arizona’s first punt return touchdown in three years, Richard Morrison muffed a punt and turned the ball back over to UCLA after Arizona made one of its few stops of the game in the second quarter, giving the Bruins the ball in Arizona territory and leading to a 1-yard touchdown run from backup running back Damien Thigpen.
The ugly: Scary injuries
The Wildcats suffered injuries to three players, two of which looked to be particularly serious.
Starting offensive lineman Chris Putton went to the locker room in the third quarter with an apparent injury, but linebacker Hank Hobson and Scott had partiucalrly scary moments for the UA.
Last week, the Wildcats received a bit of a scare when, after a double helmet-to-helmet hit from USC players Scott proceeded to throw up. Concussion was the assumption then, but that wound up not being the case.
He might not have been so lucky against UCLA. With 6:17 left in the third quarter, and Arizona trailing 45-10, Scott attempted a pass from his own end zone. As he released the ball, a UCLA defender tackled him as his head appeared to slam into the defender on the way down.
“Matt appeared he hit his head on somone’s knee or thigh,” Rodriguez said. “He was a little dizzy so he went to the locker room. He’s obviously upset because of the way we played. We’ll see how that goes. “
Scott lied motionless in the end zone for six seconds before a teammate tapped him, after starting to get up he put his head to his hands and the medical staff approached him and instructed to stay down. After a few minutes of talking to him, they assisted Scott in walking off the field and, eventually, into the locker room. B.J. Denker and Morrison took snaps at quarterback to close out the game.
Hobson’s injury appeared more serious. With 12:55 remaining in the fourth quarter, the sophomore linebacker went down while pursuing a tackle. Hobson appeared to grab his shoulder and fall to the ground, it was unclear what the injury was or its severity, but Hobson was taken out of the stadium on a stretcher.
Hobson told Rodriguez that he had all the movement in his hands and feet, but as of the postgame press conference he was still being evaluated to determine whether he would travel back to Tucson with the team or spend a night in the hospital.
“We’re athletes we have to move on to the next play,” Quinn said of how the injuries impacted the team. “Injuries are gonna happen. We have the best medical staff in the country here. We’ll see how they do next week and we’ll go from there.”
Oh, and then McKale Center caught fire
The Numbers: UCLA
611 total yards (308 rushing, 303 passing)
36 first downs
4 sacks
8-for-15 on third down
8-for-9 in the red zone
Brett Hundley (quarterback): 23-of-28, 288 yards, 3 touchdowns, 16 rushing yards, 1 touchdown
Jonathan Franklin (running back): 24 carries, 162 yards, 2 touchdowns
(Franklin became UCLA’s all-time leading rusher after a touchdown run in the first quarter)
The Numbers: Arizona
257 total yards (121 rushing, 136 passing)
18 first downs
3-for-14 on third down
2-for-2 in the red zone