PASADENA, California. Early in the second quarter of UCLA’s 38-27 win over LSU on Saturday, athletic director Martin Jarmond stood in his suite and stared at the nearly full Rose Bowl, submerged in the atmosphere.
“That looks good,” he said, radiant with pride.
Moments later, runner Zach Charbonnet threw the LSU defense to make a 12-yard touchdown to put UCLA ahead for the first time in the game. Jarmond instinctively sent both arms directly over his head. While he was careful not to take too much advantage of the moment (there was still a lot of play left to play), the celebration was not just about getting ahead in the second quarter. It was a brief glimpse of a vision that was coming true.
“So happy for this community, for this team,” quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson said after the win. “I’ve known for a long time. I know Bruin fans had to wait a while, but now we have things in the right direction.”
When former UCLA CEO Dan Guerrero hired Chip Kelly in 2017, he was widely accepted as the best coach on the market. While his foray into the NFL didn’t work out, Kelly’s record of 46-7 in four years as head coach in Oregon spoke for itself. His arrival in Westwood came with expectations that UCLA could finally take advantage of his long unmet potential and compete regularly for conference titles. It also allowed for the possibility that UCLA could become relevant on the national stage.
During Kelly’s first three years, that didn’t happen. Not even close.
The first two seasons were abject misfortunes from a win-lose standpoint (combined record of 7-17) and, in 2019, season ticket sales dropped to the lowest figure since the Bruins moved at the Rose Bowl in 1981. Last year, with no fans in the abbreviated pandemic season, there was progress (3-4), but that said to what extent the bar had shrunk.
Behind the scenes, however, Kelly felt confident that as the depth of the team improved, her fortune on the field would increase. The Bruins had 115 players participate in the spring ball (usually that number is around 70) and positioned themselves to have several veteran players in key roles.
“In our first season, when we beat USC, we had 57 fellow players,” Kelly told ESPN in July. “Everyone has 85. So when we added 25, we got to 72. Then last year we were still under 80. This will be the first year we have over 80 in scholarships. So , we only get this competitive depth [matters], because in this league your depth will be tested. I think we’ve always had very good front-line players, but when one of them fell there was a fall. “
History shows that it is ridiculous to draw firm conclusions about a college football team during the first month of the season. It remains to be seen how a win against LSU, which ranked 5-5 last season, at the end of the season will look, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it was the show’s most important win since Kelly arrived.
It was important to generate momentum in the opening season for an increasingly apathetic fan base. The celebratory atmosphere, with the presence of nearly 70,000 fans, was the kind of experience that can make fans come back and contrast with the Bruins ’victory in a mostly empty stadium against Hawaii the previous week.
“I think that was the busiest I’ve seen the Rose Bowl since I’ve been here,” defender Bo Calvert said. “And I loved it. It was a great energy from the first moment. The defense was ready, you know, it thrived a lot among the local people. There were also a lot of LSU fans. And I think it was a lot of fun. to be part of, to have a team that travels as big as them. “
For Thompson-Robinson, who committed to the program before hiring Kelly, the win also provided a sense of validation.
“I think all the locker rooms had a lot of confidence in this game,” he said. “Everyone was hoping to win the game. That just proved our expectations and we have more to come.”
Through two games, Thompson-Robinson completed 19 of 36 passes from 390 yards with four touchdowns and one interception. While his numbers aren’t impressive, he has demonstrated his ability to find players at key moments. Against LSU, he hit Greg Dulcich, who turned a medium-sized gain into a 75-yard touchdown in the second quarter and later connected with Kyle Philips on a 45-yard touchdown that put UCLA 38-20 at the end of the quarter. .
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Kyle Philips impresses with his footwork when UCLA annoys LSU No. 16.
What makes the offense disappear, however, are the two runners: Charbonnet and Brittain Brown. One week after combining for 186 yards with 19 runs against Hawaii, the tandem ran for 213 yards with 28 runs against LSU. The team with the “sissy blue” uniforms, like the one referred to by LSU coach Ed Orgeron in the UCLA blue, was the most physical and applied to both sides of the ball.
UCLA allowed just 49 yards on 25 carries and, although LSU quarterback Max Johnson threw 330 yards, he never felt comfortable.
“You’ve seen us change teams around here – it was like watching a hockey game with changing lines, but I think it’s because our defensive staff did a great job keeping everyone fresh,” Kelly said. “All the guys were so marked in the game plan and there’s no drop in going from one group to another. I’ve been impressed with them for a long time.”
With an offensive balance, a good defense, and finally depth, the main way to get away from UCLA right now is that the temperate outside expectations that came with the season are about to rise.
The Bruins are out this week and will return to the Rose Bowl on Sept. 18 against a Fresno State team that gave Oregon everything it could do before losing to Eugene on Saturday.
From there, the schedule is set pretty well for UCLA once the Pac-12 game begins at Stanford on September 25th. Of the top four teams on the calendar – Stanford, Arizona State, Arizona and Washington – only ASU won its debut. If the Bruins manage to get through this stretch unscathed, it will add to the intrigue when Kelly’s former Oregon team heads to the Rose Bowl on October 23rd.
“They understand that if you embrace the process, the process will embrace you,” Kelly said. “I think these guys get out of exactly what they put into it. And the funniest part, the mature part, is that they actually put more into it. They want more.
“It’s the biggest game ever invented because you can’t fake football.”
Soon, the country will find out if UCLA is real.