Week 10, UCLA vs Arizona State: Welcome to the Pit of Misery

It’s been a rough week to be a UCLA Bruins fan.

A combination of stealing, decommitments, and decapitations have led for a sad week, welcome to the pit of misery Bruins fans, dilly dilly. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully the UCLA football team will bring that light on Saturday against Arizona State.

No one was surprised when Utah rolled over a Josh Rosen-less UCLA team. But, the margin of victory was horrific. The defense was awful as it has been the whole year, the offense was terrible for obvious reason and quite frankly this team doesn’t deserve to make a bowl. At this point, UCLA is playing for pride and Rosen is playing for draft stock. Arizona State is a beatable team. I truly think that UCLA can win this game because the Sun Devils are similar to what the Bruins are.

Sun Devils’ coach Todd Graham came into the season on the hottest of seats in the conference but a surprisingly good season has cooled off his seat. The opposite happened to Jim Mora. His seat is basically on fire right now and if it weren’t for a massive buyout clause he’d probably be gone already. Both coaches are not known for defense or consistency.

In the past three games, ASU has given up 10, 48, 30. They’re defense is incredibly inconsistent; they could have a game like they did against Washington and only give up seven points to one of the best teams in the nation or give up 41 to a bad Colorado team. Expect this game to be a high scoring game as all UCLA games seem to be now-a-days.

Offensively, ASU returns junior quarterback, Manny Wilkins. He has had a much improved 2017 campaign with a stellar touchdown to interception ratio of 11 to 3 this year. Wilkins is one touchdown away from matching his total from his sophomore season. The Sun Devils also return two solid running backs in Kalen Ballage and Demario Richard. Both should instill fear in Bruins fans as both could go off for 150 yards and a couple touchdowns. With the defense being as bad as it is, injuries or not, expect Arizona State to score at least 30.

This leaves us with the question of, can UCLA score more than 30 and possibly go into the 40s. Under normal circumstances, I would say yes easily but things have changed since the beginning of the season. Rosen is coming off a concussion which, are always scary. This team has seemingly been demoralized by all the blowouts they have suffered in the past weeks and their coach seems like a dead man walking. It also doesn’t help when half of your offense suffers season ending injuries. Kenny Lacy, Caleb Wilson, Darren Andrews, Nate Starks all are out with a varity of injuries. We are not sure if Rosen is playing which would force the Bruins to give the ball too redshirt freshman quarterback Matt Lynch. Get your beverages ready because Saturday might be a long night in the Rose Bowl. I have no feel for this Bruins team and it might be the worst team in recent memory. I’ll play it safe and go with a 42-28 loss at home against the Sun Devils.