UCLA football turns on the jets late, upsets LSU in packed Rose Bowl
Amid a sea of purple and gold, the Bruin faithful got the last laugh Saturday night.
UCLA football (2-0) took a lead in the second quarter and never looked back, besting No. 16 LSU (0-1) by a score of 38-27. The Bruins had been clinging on tight for most of the night but blew the game up in the fourth quarter with a handful of plays that sent the Tiger faithful scrambling back to the parking lot.
It seemed like there were more LSU fans than UCLA supporters when the game kicked off, but as the sun went down, the Bruin side of the stadium got louder and louder as their team ran away with it.
"I’m so happy for this community, I’m so happy for this team, it’s a long time coming," said quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson. "I know the Bruin fans had to wait a little while, but we got things going in the right direction now and I’m happy we could get the win for Bruin nation."
UCLA opened the fourth quarter up by just four points, and the crowd of 68,123 had their air taken out of them by a long LSU touchdown set up by a referee who got in the way over the middle. Instead of crumbling and leaving their fans in a state of disappointment, two touchdowns over the next 10 minutes put the Bruins up 37-20, and let garbage time waste away down the stretch.
After taking the final kneel-down to close things out, Thompson-Robinson turned around and launched the ball as hard as he could down to the other end of the field. Cannons shot out confetti, leading to linebacker Bo Calvert and safety Quentin Lake laying down and doing snow angels on the field.
"That was the most packed I’ve ever seen the Rose Bowl all I’ve been here and I loved it," Calvert said. "The defense was on point, really thriving off of the home crowd. There were a lot of LSU fans here too, and I think that was really fun to be a part of too, having a team as big as they did. It was just fun to keep them quiet today."
It was all about the big plays for the Bruins, who gained 398 of their 459 yards on 15 chunk plays.
Thompson-Robinson ended the night with 260 yards, three touchdowns and an interception on 9-of-16 passing, posting a career-high passer rating of 242.1 in the process. Thompson-Robinson had touchdowns of 75 yards, 45 yards and 14 yards to tight end Greg Dulcich, receiver Kyle Philips and receiver Chase Cota, respecitvely.
The long score to Dulcich got UCLA on the board and helped even things up at 7-7 in the second quarter. The preseason John Mackey Award watch list member ran across the right side of the field, turned towards the end zone, made one man miss with a juke and dove across the goal line through contact.
Not every tight end could have racked up 60 yards after the catch on one play, but that's exactly what Dulcich did Saturday night.
"Coach (Derek) Sage says you catch the ball, it’s first down or touchdown – I kind of think touchdown then first down," Dulcich said. "And I know he’s happy about that."
A few minutes later, running back Zach Charbonnet scored one from 12 yards out, rounding out the drive with 67 of the Bruins' 71 yards on the drive.
Charbonnet ended the night with 117 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries, while Brittain Brown – who scored the first of UCLA's two fourth quarter touchdowns to make it an 11-point game – put up 96 yards on 17 carries.
"All of us bouncing off tackles – Zach, you can’t tackle, Brittain you can’t tackle, Kyle – so it’s tough to stop that," Dulcich said.
The Bruins' weapons weren't the only ones bringing the physicality, either, as the defense hit Tigers quarterback Max Johnson early and often Saturday night.
Lake led the team with seven tackles while also picking up two pass breakups and a quarterback hit. 2.0 sacks and 4.0 tackles for loss doesn't exactly pop off the stat sheet, but the number of times Johnson got roughed up and sat on the turf almost became too high to track.
One of those bully ball plays ended in an interception by linebacker Caleb Johnson, who took advantage of a rushed screen attempt and returned it back into the LSU red zone. Thompson-Robinson also capitalized by cashing the extra possession in with his touchdown to Cota.
Defensive end Mitchell Agude forced two fumbles, and even though UCLA didn't recover either one, the simple act of disrupting LSU's rhythm did more than enough damage.
"We’ve been working hard for a couple of years now," Calvert said, getting choked up at the postgame press conference. "It’s kinda emotional – these guys have been fighting for this every day. And there’s been some tough times, and we just pushed through them. I’m really proud of our guys.
The Bruins now sit at 2-0 after not winning a nonconference game under coach Chip Kelly through his first three seasons. The team celebrated accordingly in the locker room afterwards, and Kelly said it was the same old thing in terms of how his players treated him during the postgame mosh pit.
"Our guys enjoy throwing water at each other," Kelly said. "It’s good to have wet hair on Saturday night, that means we did something good."
This also marks the first time UCLA has been two games over .500 since Kelly arrived in town, and all the fans in attendance were surely happy to see it all go down.
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