UCLA vs. Hawaii Week 0: Postgame Takeaways
The Bruins are back, and they made sure everybody knew it.
UCLA football (1-0) stomped out Hawaii (0-1) as part of a 44-10 performance Saturday at the Rose Bowl. Aside from it being the first nonconference and season-opening win for the Bruins under coach Chip Kelly, the players and staff just looked like they were having fun all day long.
These are four of the biggest takeaways, narratives and questions to come out of Saturday's game.
The running game is legit
Enough has been said about Zach Carbonnet's big day, but his success bears repeating, as does the fact that he didn't do it alone.
Charbonnet led the team with 106 yards and three touchdowns, and each of those scoring plays came from 20-plus yards away from the end zone. Whether it was his great vision, one-cut mentality or his ability to break tackles, Charbonnet stood above the rest of his teammates as arguably the biggest winner for the day.
Brittain Brown wasn't too shabby either, racking up 78 yards and a touchdown on 6.0 yards per carry. He got eight more touches than Charbonnet, so he's still expected to be the lead back moving forward. After backing up Demetric Felton a year ago, Brown is now averaging 6.5 yards per carry since arriving at UCLA.
Quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson said after the game that he has the best running back duo in the country behind him, and following that performance, his statement looks pretty reasonable. That isn't to overlook the depth in the room though, as Keegan Jones, Brian Kowall and Ethan Fernea combined for an additional 61 yards of their own.
The five running backs couldn't have done all that damage on their own, however. The offensive line did a great job opening up giant holes for the starters, and that was without starting center Sam Marrazzo. Jon Gaines, Atonio Mafi, Paul Grattan and Duke Clemens led the way on the interior and they all looked like belonged in their respective spots despite the heavy rotations in the heat.
Once Marrazzo gets back, the run game only stands to get more dangerous as the season moves on.
Thompson-Robinson wasn't good, and that's OK...for now
In such a one-sided game, there were very few negatives to take away on the Bruins' end.
One of those negatives wasn't an expected one, however, and it was Thompson-Robinson's performance – especially in the first half.
The third-year starter missed receiver Kyle Philips for a wide-open touchdown on the Bruins' opening offensive drive of the game. He missed receiver Chase Cota badly a few series later and although he found Cota on the sideline in the second quarter, Thompson-Robinson's decision to throw it back shoulder resulted in the defender catching up and blowing the play up before Cota could secure the ball.
Thompson-Robinson finished the first half 4-of-12 with 45 yards, setting him up to finish with one of his worst statistical outings ever. Thankfully for his numbers, momentum and confidence, Thompson-Robinson was 6-of-8 with 95 yards and a touchdown in the third quarter before taking the entire fourth quarter off.
UCLA was able to take a 31-3 lead before Thompson-Robinson ever got going, and that's partially thanks to the fact that his relatively poor performance did not include any truly negative or back-breaking mistakes.
It was nice to see that the Bruins didn't need Thompson-Robinson to be at his best to win, but they're going to need a lot more out of him once the going gets a little tougher against LSU and Pac-12 opponents.
A whole new defense
The UCLA defensive players who talked to the media over the past few months weren't kidding when they said all they needed was a little more time to get acclimated to assistant head coach Brian Norwood's defense.
The Bruins came out of the gates running around like they were on fire, attacking the ball with more ferocity and speed than they seemingly ever have under Kelly. Balls were swatted down at the line, jarred loose and picked off, and Hawaii quarterback Chevan Cordeiro was getting abused basically every time he had the ball in his hands for more than a second.
Schematically speaking, the defense didn't look all that different from the one Norwood and defensive coordinator Jerry Azzinaro drew up last year. But UCLA didn't have spring camp, summer workouts or a true fall camp in 2020, robbing them of valuable time with the staff that could have helped them adapt to the new system more quickly.
That extra time this past offseason resulted in the Rainbow Warriors finishing with 4.6 yards per pass attempt and 1.2 yards per rush attempt Saturday, in addition to an 0-for-4 day on 4th down, two interceptions and two fumbles.
Better late than never, and this defense is certainly better.
Attendance woes continue
Although it was expected, it was still a little funny when UCLA announced over the press box loudspeakers that the attendance for Saturday's game was 32,982.
There clearly were not that many people in the bleachers for the game, so what ended up officially being the second-smallest crowd in UCLA's Rose Bowl history was probably the smallest in reality. UCLA isn't to blame on the number not adequately representing the in-person crowd though, since they obviously went off of tickets sold or some other concrete metric they always use.
Credit to Bruin Report Online's Mike Regalado for winning the media's pregame attendance guessing pool, as he predicted a crowd of 32,500. The Associated Press' Joe Reedy technically got the closest at 33,000, but going by "The Price is Right" rules, Regalado took the W. And for full disclosure, those were both of their backup guesses since the two of them, and I, all started at 32,000. They changed their picks so we'd all have different figures, and it paid off for them as a result.
Gentleman's bets aside, UCLA probably isn't very happy with its turnout at the first game open to fans since the 2019 season. The Bruins became the butt of many jokes on social media, and although the storylines didn't supersede the team's performance, it likely isn't one of the narratives the athletic department was hoping to worry about.
LSU is expected to show up with roughly 20,000 fans for next Saturday's game at the Rose Bowl. Assuming UCLA fans outnumber LSU fans – which at this point, might not be an absolute certainty – there should be at least 40,000 people present to see the game go down.
That still isn't 50% of capacity, so we'll have to wait and see if the Bruins' emphatic win did enough to spark some local interest and get attendance numbers back on track for real.
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