When I saw Kevin Prince come in at quarterback for the UCLA Bruins after Richard Brehaut broke his lower leg with 9:58 remaining in the second quarter of their battle with the Washington State Cougars at the Rose Bowl Saturday night, four words screamed through my head:
“OH NO, WE’RE DOOMED!!”
If you saw Prince’s performance against Texas three weeks before, you would be screaming the same thing.
At least I wasn’t booing him like quite a few other Bruin fans; I was yelling, “Handoffs! Don’t throw the ball!”, fearing that Prince would duplicate that three interception day.
As the game went on, it became crystal clear that the maligned ex-starter played under a mindset of “I’ll show them!”, as he had the best game that he has had in a long time in engineering the Bruins’ 28-25 comeback win over Washington State before a surprisingly decent crowd of 64, 217; Prince’s go-ahead touchdown pass to Shaquelle Evans and two pointer to Nelson Rosario with 3:26 left in the game, plus Andrew Abbott’s interception of Cougars quarterback Marshall Lobbestael at the two-minute mark, sealed the win.
It was also apparent, as the game went on, that Prince’s Bruin teammates adopted the same attitude of “I’ll show them!”, with a big dash of “We are not gonna lose!”, as although Prince did throw a pick in the end zone at the end of the first half, and UCLA did give up a total of 435 yards, 235 of them in the air, as well as commit several costly 15-yard penalties, to say that they were a determined and resillient bunch of Bruins would be an understatement.
In completing 8-of-13 passes for 173 yards (the first time he’s passed for more than 100 yards since 2009) and two scores, Prince came through for coach Rick Neuheisel, as did Rosario with his 120 yards receiving on three catches, including an unbelievable 41-yarder with two WSU defenders all over him, and Johnathan Franklin, who had 110 rushing yards on only 12 carries.
Derrick Coleman was his usually studly self in rushing for two key one-yard touchdowns in the second and third quarters, which kept UCLA within striking distance.
The defense has to be given credit as well, not only for forcing three field goals in the first half instead of touchdowns, which they could have easily given up, but for two key goal line stands in the second quarter and for finally causing havoc in the backfield when it counted, making eight tackles for a loss and Datone Jones getting a sack on Lobbestael.
Now that Prince has helped the Bruins even their record at 3-3 (2-1 in the Pac-12 Conference) and kept their hopes of a bowl bid alive, he needs to do two things:
1. Show everyone in Tucson, where UCLA will play the Arizona Wildcats in their next game, that his good passing and overall performance wasn’t just luck, and…
2. STAY HEALTHY!!
With Brehaut done for a while – the prognosis is that that he’ll be out three to six weeks according to Neuheisel, but with a broken leg it will likely be more than that – Prince is going to be the man at QB, with highly touted freshman Brett Hundley now the backup; as big an upside as Hundley has, I don’t want to see him thrown out there before he’s ready, which may well be the case if Prince gets hurt.
For now, things are starting to look up in Westwood, but…
Whether or not this football team can use this win as a springboard and maintain their intensity and “will not lose” attitude remains to be seen.
NEXT OPPONENT: Arizona Wildcats, October 20th, Tucson, AZ, 6:00 p.m.
It’s a good thing that UCLA has a bye week before going to the desert for a Thursday night match with U of A, not only because some of their players need to heal up, but also because they will be facing the Pac-12’s leading passer, Nick Foles.
The fact that Foles has passed for 2,255 yards despite the Wildcats’ 1-5 record is scary.
Add to that the fact that the Bruins have lost five straight games in this series, and you have a tough matchup here.
It is extremely important that the defense steps up against Arizona; the defensive line must get in the back field and cause havoc in pressuring Foles, while the offense must maintain its success in the running game and keep Foles off the field.
UCLA has a good chance at leaving Tucson with a win if it does these things, along with keeping the mistakes to a minimum.
It goes without saying that this will be a key game to start the second half of the season with.