UCLA lose to Oklahoma: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The UCLA Football team is off to a terrible 0-3 start in Chip Kelly’s second year after a dismantling loss against the Oklahoma Sooners.

The UCLA Bruins took the field against the visiting Oklahoma Sooners and it took two and half minutes for everyone to see just how far apart the two programs were.

Sooners quarterback Jalen Hurts rushed for 99 yards on the opening drive including the opening touchdown on a 30 yard run on fourth and 3. The rest of the game was no better as the Sooners thrashed the Bruins 48-14.

Hurts was the player of the game gaining 439 yards from scrimmage helping the Sooners roll the Bruins off the field to the tune of 611 yards and scoring on eight of eleven drives.

The loss pushes the Bruins to 3-12 in the Chip Kelly era and for the second year in a row, the team has yet to win a non-conference game.

Here is how the game went good, bad, and ugly.

Good

From the Bruins perspective, very little good occurred for the team they got to the stadium on time and no major injuries occurred so that was positive. The Bruins did put together their best drive of the year. Down 17-0 Dorian Thompson-Robinson went three for three in the air for 43  yards and gained seven yards on the ground taking the Bruins 75 yards in four minutes.

The Bruins scored a touchdown on a Thompson-Robinson pass to Kyle Phillips making it 17-7 the closest the Bruins were able to make the score before the Sooners ran away with the game.

Bad

You could say the whole game but we can try harder to pinpoint some things. Oklahoma converted 5-10 third and fourth down situations (Hurts opening touchdown being on fourth), meanwhile the Bruins 5 of 16 in the same situations.

For the third game in a row, the Bruins were the more undisciplined team committing six penalties to the Sooners five. Also for the third game in a row, the Bruins were the more charitable team committing two turnovers to the Sooners zero.

Ugly

The Sooners and the Bruins didn’t belong on the same field and it showed for the second year in a row. The Sooners outscored the Bruins 87-35 in their home and away series these last two seasons.

Hurts was so good his 141 rushing yards in the first half broke a Sooners record of two weeks, 128 yards tied by Hurts in week one.

Hurts wasn’t the only Sooner to throw and run for a touchdown in the game. Wide receiver CeeDee Lamb caught two touchdown passes and scored on a one-yard end-around, Charleston Rambo also caught two touchdown passes, both receivers doing so with hardly a Bruin in sight.

Moving On

The UCLA Bruins go on the road to Washington State for their Pac-12 opener, where things don’t get much better as they face another high powered offense in the form of Mike Leach’s Cougars. It will likely be another hard week for the Bruins and their fans.