The UCLA football team struggled to get its offense to the end zone on Saturday night, but the defense spent plenty of time in the paint.
Defensive players batted down passes and shut down receivers in the red zone and beyond time and time again to hold USC to one touchdown in the 19-13 loss.
“Our secondary played amazing,” linebacker Kain Medrano told reporters after the game. “Making them contest for jump balls down there in the end zone and we were coming out on top. It propelled us for momentum and some energy, just knowing that on those third downs that they can go out there and play great pass defense.”
USC (4-7 overall, 3-6 Big Ten) came into the game against UCLA (6-5, 4-5) with the sixth-best red zone offense in the Big Ten Conference, which had a success rate of 87.5% and had scored 29 touchdowns in the red zone.
Running back Woody Marks, a hard-nosed downhill runner, was handed the ball 18 times as the Trojans gave quarterback Jayden Maiava, who was making his second career start at USC, increased opportunities.
A UCLA defense that has come up with 10 interceptions this season was unable to force a turnover, but it almost always was exactly where it needed to be to keep Maiava from throwing a touchdown pass.
“We didn’t run the ball well, we had a number of busted assignments,” USC head coach Lincoln Riley said. “Some pretty generic things for us we did not do well and then the throw game, we had a lot of opportunities to make some one-on-one plays and we didn’t make enough of them.”
Kaylin Moore broke up a short pass with less than seven minutes left in the first quarter while Jalen Woods, who was making his first career start, pressured Maiava. Devin Kirkwood reached up to beat USC receiver Ja’Kobi Lane to a ball to repeat the pattern at the start of the second quarter. Woods got his own pass breakup later in the frame, too.
Each third-down play brought out Trojans kicker Michael Lantz, who made four field goals from 30 yards out or less over the course of the game, to keep the scoring at a slow crawl but at a pace quick enough to keep USC in the lead.
USC finally scored a touchdown midway through the fourth quarter on a broken play. Maiava shifted right then scrambled left to avoid a tackle with the ball in one hand. He flung a pass to Lane, who was waiting in the deep corner of the end zone — just out of reach of Medrano and Kirkwood.
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“They finally made a play,” UCLA head coach DeShaun Foster said. “They are scholarship athletes on that side of the ball, too.
“Eventually they were gonna make a play and it was just unfortunate. As bad as we played, it was a six-point game, it was a one-score game so if we could have just found a way to manufacture a drive and just keep a rhythm and keep going — but we weren’t able to do that.”
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Saturday’s loss thwarted UCLA’s chances of becoming bowl-eligible, meaning one game — against Fresno State — remains this season.
“We kept rebounding this whole season,” Foster said. “They’re going to continue to be resilient and continue to be the type of football players that I know that they are. And the season’s not over. They signed up to play ball and we’re going to finish this season on a good note and I’m gonna try sending these seniors off the right way.”