UCLA vs. Arizona State College Football Week 10: Postgame Takeaways

It was an eventful game, not always in the best ways, but the Bruins still came out on top.

No. 12 UCLA football (8-1, 5-1 Pac-12) beat Arizona State (3-6, 2-4 Pac-12) 50-36 at Sun Devil Stadium on Saturday. The Bruins started off on the wrong foot, only to surge ahead and build a big-time lead that the Sun Devils nearly erased in the fourth quarter.

These are three of the biggest takeaways, narratives and questions to come out of Saturday's game.

Spare parts help running game explode

When it became clear that Zach Charbonnet wasn't going to see the field Saturday night, there was serious cause for concern for the Bruins' ground attack.

Losing the nation's leading rusher against a run defense that has been trending up for weeks was presumably going to hurt UCLA's offense, both in terms of production and playcalling. As it turned out, it didn't make much of a difference at all.

The Bruins rushed for 402 yards, their most under coach Chip Kelly and their most in a single game the past decade.

Perhaps the most impressive part of it was that the guys who did most of that damage weren't even running backs.

Quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson, taking out his two sacks, rushed for 130 yards and two touchdowns on eight carries. The veteran added some flash to those runs too, hurdling defenders, spinning out of tackles and winning footraces to the pylon while trash talking defenders along the way.

Kazmeir Allen was a running back for three years, but has spent the last two years at receiver and didn't get a single carry this season until Week 9. He was the starting running back Saturday, and he took 11 carries for 137 yards and a touchdown, including a 75-yard score that helped hold off the Sun Devils' comeback, plus 63 receiving yards.

Colson Yankoff transferred to UCLA from Washington as a quarterback, then moved to receiver after one year in the program. After suffering a pair of major injuries, Yankoff moved to running back this past offseason, and he went for 48 yards and the game-sealing touchdown in the final minutes Saturday night.

Keegan Jones was the only true running back who got time, and he rushed for a career-high 98 yards and a touchdown while also making a 3-yard catch for a score out of the backfield.

Thompson-Robinson only passed for 169 yards, and yet UCLA dropped a 50-burger without any points on defense or special teams. That's a credit to the run game, which looked as good as it has all year, by far, without Charbonnet.

Defense still showing signs of weakness

A 50-point performance by your offense usually suggests a blowout, and while Saturday's game may have seemed like that at times, the Sun Devils never really went away.

The Bruins' defense kept letting them back into it in the second half, nearly choking away a 24-point lead down the stretch.

The defense was dealt a tough hand to start, given that Thompson-Robinson's interception on the first play of the game set Arizona State up on UCLA's side of the field. They held the Sun Devils to a field goal, but they marched 75 yards in 12 plays for a touchdown their next time out.

It seemed like the defense got their legs under them for the next two quarters, forcing three punts before the half, then another one to open the third quarter. Across those five drives, Arizona State only picked up 57 yards on 21 plays with no points.

Then UCLA went to soft coverage and prevent defense with a lot of backups on the field, and things nearly fell apart.

In four drives, the Sun Devils picked up 26 points. The Bruins hardly ever forced any third downs and routinely got dragged downfield instead of making tackles at the point of contact.

If it weren't an interception in the end zone to close it out, Arizona State would have scored on its final five drives of the night. In that span, UCLA allowed 7.9 yards per play, which is an embarrassing lack of resistance.

Defensive coordinator Bill McGovern was missing once again with an illness, not taking his regular spot in the booth to call plays. Perhaps if he was there, things could have been evened out a little more.

Either way, the Bruins will need to turn things around in this last home stretch of the season. Arizona has a good offense and USC has a great one, and those teams could pick apart UCLA if they play like they did Saturday.

End of the season shaping up nicely

Three weeks remain in the regular season, and the Pac-12 is going to be must-see TV down the stretch.

Not only did UCLA win this weekend, but so did Oregon, Utah and USC. The Ducks are in first with a spotless conference record, while the other three all have one loss each.

Bruin fans have their eyes on the crosstown rivalry game versus the Trojans on Nov. 19, with both teams possibly entering the contest 9-1 with a spot in the championship game on the line. The Utes and Ducks also face off that same day, positioning it as a critical moment in the race for the Pac-12 crown.

Elsewhere on Saturday, though, results across the country made it an even more interesting race.

No. 10 LSU upset No. 6 Alabama, essentially locking the Crimson Tide out of the College Football Playoff race. Both teams have two losses, and even the SEC bias of the selection committee won't be able to overlook that.

No. 4 Clemson had its undefeated season cut short by Notre Dame, giving them their first loss of the year. While the Tigers are still in position to win the ACC, a one-loss ACC champion would likely be a hair behind a one-loss Pac-12 champion by year's end.

No. 3 Georgia also beat No. 1 Tennessee, which will likely hold the Vols out of the SEC championship game.

There is a path for the Pac-12 to clinch a playoff spot, which means there's still a chance UCLA makes it there for the first time ever. These next three or four weeks are going to be electric, and it's going to be fun to follow for Bruin fans everywhere.

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