Arizona Looking for First Win of Season Against Floundering UCLA Football
The year was 2017, and Jedd Fisch was the man in charge at UCLA.
The Fisch era didn’t last long in Westwood – all of two games, actually, serving as the interim between Jim Mora and Chip Kelly – but he did leave enough of an impact in his time in blue and gold to still have ties to the team four years later.
He was one of the coaches who gave Kelly his first lowdown on the roster, much of which is still hanging around in 2021. Fisch was also the offensive coordinator who recruited quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson, and even connected with the young signal-caller when he was at Michigan before that.
“Me and coach Fisch have had a great relationship ever since he was at Michigan and then came over to UCLA,” Thompson-Robinson said. “He’s a big part of why I chose UCLA, him and his offensive scheme and all that stuff. So him, as an offensive coach, is something I really admire.”
Fisch is now the head coach for Arizona (0-4, 0-1 Pac-12), and they’ll welcome UCLA football (3-2, 1-1) to Tucson on Saturday. Not only will it be the first time the Bruins have faced Fisch since he left after his lone season in town, but it’s also the first time Kelly and Fisch will go head to head at any level.
And while he won his first and only regular season game as a head coach at UCLA, Fisch has yet to secure a win at Arizona.
As a winless team, Kelly said he knows just how badly Fisch and the Wildcats want a win.
“They are very dangerous,” Kelly said.
Kelly thinking highly of Arizona goes beyond his well-documented thoughts on the myth of wins building momentum, however. The Wildcats may have lost to BYU and Oregon, but they were threatening the Cougars until the final possession and hung close with the Ducks through three-plus quarters.
Arizona outgained BYU and Oregon in those games too, as well as the loss to Northern Arizona. The same can’t be said for their loss to San Diego State, but Kelly still said he’s taking the Wildcats very seriously.
“They’re a well-coached team, so it’s like anything, you turn the tape on and look at them and you can tell if a team is a good team and that’s a good team,” Kelly said. “The team’s competitive and they play very hard, and the kids know we’re going to get everything we get when we go down there on Saturday night.”
Fisch hasn’t been able to run as effective of an offense as he did with Michigan, UCLA or the Los Angeles Rams since joining Arizona, not once breaking the 20-point threshold four games into the season. However, he has finally settled on a quarterback after starting the season juggling three of them.
South Florida transfer Jordan McCloud tossed five interceptions in his first start as a Wildcat two weeks ago, but he is currently completing 64.3% of his passes and posted a 133.2 passer rating with a 9-to-2 touchdown-to-interception ratio with the Bulls in 2020.
From both a physical and statistical standpoint, McCloud is not on the same level of the last three quarterbacks – Freno State’s Jake Haener, Stanford’s Tanner McKee and Arizona State’s Jayden Daniels – who have torn UCLA’s defense apart.
Linebacker Bo Calvert said he isn’t looking at Saturday as a chance to make up for those three performances, in which they allowed 344.7 passing yards per game and lost twice.
“I think each week is its own thing and that’s how you kind of hurt yourself, if you go into a game trying to make up for everything you did in the last game,” Calvert said. “I think we had sort of an off night on Saturday, but every team, on any given Saturday, any team can win and any team can lose and that’s just football
On the other side of the ball, Kelly had high praise for Arizona defensive coordinator Don Brown, who he labeled as one of the best in the country. Brown, who is also known as “Dr. Blitz” for his all-out, aggressive schemes, has yet to draw up an effective plan to stop the run this season.
With running backs Zach Charbonnet and Brittain Brown coming out of the backfield, that may play right into UCLA’s hands.
The Bruins are averaging 203.6 rushing yards per game, while the Wildcats are giving up 191.8, worse than any run defense UCLA has faced this fall outside of Stanford.
UCLA got beat on both sides of the ball against Arizona State last week, sacrificing first place in the Pac-12 South in the process.
This next game against Arizona stands as an opportunity to get back over .500 in conference play, and it all kicks off at 7:30 p.m at Arizona Stadium.
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