On to this week's Stat of the Week report. Last week's Stat of the Week was on the money again, taking us to 11 for 11 on the year. We thought that in order to beat Oregon that we would absolutely have to have special teams and/or defense come up big and score a touchdown. We also said that we had to win the turnover battle. The defense put us up +2 in turnovers and put our special teams in place to score 9 of our points (3 field goals), which is more than the touchdown we said we needed from them to win. 4 turnovers caused by the defense put us deep in Oregon territory all 4 times. Even though we couldn't get first downs, it was those turnover plays, and the overall play of the defense we said would dominate Oregon, that gave us the victory.
This week's Stat of the Week is nearly identical as the last 2 games. In order to win we need read more
This DD editor is in Vegas and I don't have time to write a full Stat of the Week report. So I will keep this brief. Last game's Stat of the Week was on the money again, taking us to 10 for 10 on the year. We thought that in order to beat Arizona State that we would absolutely have to have special teams come up big and score a touchdown. We also said that we had to win the turnover battle by 2. Special teams were responsible for both touchdowns and were it not for our turnovers, avoidable turnovers, we would have won the game.
This week's Stat of the Week is a throw together analysis so it will probably be the least thought out of the year. We think to beat Oregon we pretty much have to do the same things we needed to do against ASU. We cannot win without special teams coming up big again. We need a score from special teams, or the defense, to put up enough points against Oregon's very good defense. Our defense will deflate Oregon's offensive production just like we did against ASU. We also have to take the ball away from the Ducks more than they take the ball away from us. More to the point, Dorrell and co have to make sure that we put the team in a position to hold onto the ball. That means not forcing anything. It doesn't mean going conservative. Dorrell might not know the difference. To summarize, the key Stat of the Week, is special teams scoring, defense scoring, and positive turnover ratio. We cannot win without those things happening. Go Bruins!!
On to this week's Stat of the Week. Let's first review last week's Stat of the Week for the Arizona game. Last week we said the key to winning the game was simply morale, as measured by keeping the game close at the half. If we kept the game close at the half we felt that the team would pull out a win. The key was regaining that confidence because we certainly have the talent, regardless of injuries, to beat lowly Arizona. Arizona jumped out to a 2 touchdown lead by the half. And sure enough, just like we said would happen, the team came out lifeless in the 2nd half, already beaten in their own minds. Arizona increased its lead to 3 touchdowns in 2 minutes to start the 2nd half after our 3 and out and the game seemed over right there.
But then a funny thing happened. Dorrell finally read more
On to this week's Stat of the Week. Let's first review last week's Stat of the Week for the Wazzu game. We said there were several factors that were key to winning the game for us, yet we also chose one factor as our Stat of the Week just to keep the theme going. For all three factors we chose however UCLA failed to make the necessary standard we set for the team to win:
- Keep Wazzu pass completion to under 60%. Wazzu completed 61% of its passes.
- Better than -2 turnover margin. We had a -2 turnover margin.
- Rushing game of better than 150 yards. We had 100 yards rushing for the game.
All three factors contributed to Wazzu's ability to control the ball and move down the field, and of course, they contributed to the final score. Wazzu rushed like the best rushing team in the country. A number of things set that up, including the poor defensive scheme and apparent lack of adjustment by our brilliant DC DeWayne Walker, but the consistent passing efficiency throughout the game kept their drives going. So, we are 8 for 8 on these key Stat of the Weeks. We'd also like to point out that with the insane talk of BCS championship by players and Dorrellistas after the Cal game we noted that those manic proclamations were a key indicator that we were ready for another fall against Wazzu. And fall we did.
We have already keyed on this weeks Stat of the Week during the Bruin Show broadcast on Thursday night. We think that the key to winning this game for the Bruins is exactly the same simple key we had for the Washington game: stay close up to the half. We have no idea which team will show up to play, just like after the Utah embarrassment with the Washington game. With a healthy Markey and a much healthier Cowan, according to reports, we think this team definitely has the talent to beat Arizona. But Dorrell's teams legendary inconsistency makes any analysis of this game itself almost worthless. If this team lets Arizona jump to an early lead in the first quarter or half, then they will lose what's left of their shaken confidence and lose the game. If they come out fighting and leave the half with the game close then we will probably win it. This game is about morale and confidence, and if we have it we will win it. That's it in a nutshell.
On to this week's Stat of the Week. Let's first review last week's Stat of the Week for the Cal game. We said the key to beating Cal was for the defense to stop the running game. We said specifically that if we held Cal to under 100 yards for the game that we would probably win. Cal had 67 yards on the ground (Yahoo sports) and we won. Cal should have won that game on a field goal but it was precisely the lack of production on the ground that led to Tedford making that ill-advised out pass that got intercepted by Verner for a pick-6 and the game. We noted that before the game, but after our Stat post, Walker said that the key to winning was stopping Cal's running game and that unlike last year this time that is what the defense would focus on. After the game, Cal players and coaches said the reason they lost was because UCLA stopped their running game. We tally up the the Stat of the Week and we are 7 for 7.
This week it took us a while to find the one key stat that would be critical to the outcome of the game. We dont think there is any. There are a few. But in keeping with this feature we will go ahead and narrow down the field, and commit to just one. We dont have the time to go into all the reasoning but here are the three stats that will be key: read more
We’ve done no analysis of the game this week. We are just not up to it … Dorrell has taken all the life out of UCLA football for us. Strangely, we feel that a win might be in the air, just like last year against SuC. But we will get to that in another post. Let’s get to the Stat of the Week. First, a review of last game’s Stat of the Week, which you may recall was time of possession … we are now 6 for 6 this year with our predictions.
In our Notre Dame Stat of the Week post, we said that the key to winning was holding onto the ball and keeping it more than Notre Dame. At the time, Notre Dame was near dead last in the country in time of possession, their offense AND defense were that bad. What happened?? We didn’t hold onto the ball number 1, turning over 7 times by going inexplicably with an air game using a 3rd string walk-on freshman QB with 0 passing experience, and number 2, Notre Dame did hold onto the ball. Charlie Weiss outcoached Dorrell in that Weiss planned an offensive game that wasn’t designed to gain many yards (140 total!) but also wouldn’t give up the ball. Weiss played a control game, which is exactly what we said was key to winning - time of possession - and Weiss won the game.
Incredibly, for the FIRST TIME this season Notre Dame held the ball MORE than their opponent!! Their time of possession surpassed ours by more than 4 minutes!! How can a team that gained only 140 yards on offense and that has one of the nations worst defenses hold the ball longer than us and win by 2 touchdowns??!!! Impossible … unless the opponent was one Karl Dorrell. All Karl had to do was run the ball, hold it, and get an easy win … that’s what we said. That was plainly evident in the game and easy to do. Instead, as we all know, Dorrell aired it out unnecessarily and unwisely and we turned it over. Charlie must have read our post and Karl … well … he must have been sleeping.
So this week our Stat of the Week, pay attention Karl, is read more
This week's Stat of the Week is one that we haven't used before in the 1.5 seasons we have been doing this. Before we get to it lets review last week's Stat of the Week: +2 in turnovers. Obviously, turnovers were key to our winning the Oregon State game. We never imagined we'd be that right. That makes us 5 for 5 this year.
This week's stat that will be key to our winning the game is: time of possession. Look for read more
This week's Stat of the Week is probably pretty obvious. Let's first review last week. The Stat of the Week last week - the key to winning the game for our Bruins - was again on the money. We thought that if our Bruins kept the game close at the half that you could rest assured that we would win the game, despite Karl Dorrell's inability to adjust well after halftime, because this team only needed to know that it could win. Had we gone down by 2 touchdowns the team would have imploded for the game and the season. Thankfully that did not happen. The teams went into the locker tied 10-10, leaving the Rose Bowl crowd a little uneasy, but we left the game with the win 44-31.
This week we think the key to winning this game will be turnover margin. If we win the turnover battle by 2 or more then we will win this game. OSU is among read more
Ok, we promised you a Stat of the Week for today's game and we finally have come up with one. We are pretty much 3 for 3 this year in picking the stat of the week that is key to each game's outcome (Stanford, BYU, Utah). Last week, all the stats and data pointed to complete domination by our Bruins in every facet of the game, including the final score - though the Vegas spread was tight (UCLA favored by 14.4 to 16.5) as far as we were concerned. We thought the spread was key to the outcome of the game, and that it would be a blow-out, so we made the spread the key stat of the week. We were right, the spread was the key to the game with Utah pulling away and UCLA players quitting on Dorrell once Utah did pull away. We just chose the wrong team to do that and win.
This reason why it was hard to find this week's Stat of the Week is the fact that we didn't know which team Karl Dorrell was going to get to show up, and read more
This week's Stat of the Week was a little difficult for us. Not because we coudn't find one, but because there were too many. What we look for in the Stat of the Week is the key to victory for us, something in the statistics that will prove to be a deciding factor in the game … a stat that we can watch throughout the game to gauge how our team is doing.
The Stat of the Week for our first game at Stanford was read more
