Injured Josh Rosen watches Washington finish 44-23 rout of UCLA from sideline
The dropped passes, needless penalties and missed tackles were pushed to the bottom of UCLA’s list of worries midway through the third quarter Saturday.
The Bruins suddenly found themselves without Josh Rosen.
The star quarterback who represented the Bruins’ only hope for an unlikely comeback at No. 12 Washington suffered multiple injuries that forced him out of the game. Backup quarterback Devon Modster, a redshirt freshman making his first extended appearance, showed some grit during the balance of UCLA’s 44-23 loss at Husky Stadium that was otherwise dispiriting for a variety of reasons.
The primary downer was Rosen going out after being sacked four times. He went to the locker room before reappearing on the sideline in sweats late in the game.
“He took some hits and he’s beat up,” UCLA coach Jim Mora said. “It’s multiple things going on.”
The severity of Rosen’s injuries was not immediately known and he was scheduled to be re-evaluated Sunday. An absence of any duration would be crushing. Rosen missed the Bruins’ final six games last season with a shoulder injury and his team went 1-5.
Rosen entered the game leading the Pac-12 Conference in passing yards and total offense. He finished the game against the Huskies having completed 12 of 21 passes for 93 yards and a touchdown. Rosen didn’t get nearly enough help on a day his team’s best run belonged to defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa, who picked up a fumble and ran 51 yards for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
The Bruins (4-4 overall, 2-3 Pac-12) were bad across the board, committing unnecessary penalties on defense, giving up two lengthy kickoff returns, getting gouged by the run and failing to generate much offense thanks to an inert run game and four dropped passes.
“We didn’t come to play today, as it was shown,” safety Adarius Pickett said.
Modster, whose only previous playing experience came at the end of a blowout victory over Hawaii in September, said he learned he was going to play only moments before entering the game.
His first two drives did not go well. The first ended with a tipped pass that fell incomplete and the second ended with Modster losing a fumble. A breakthrough followed on the next drive, Modster showing nice touch on several passes, including a four-yard touchdown pass to Darren Andrews in the corner of the end zone.
“Oh, it was great,” said a smiling Modster, who completed seven of 12 passes for 77 yards. “I threw it to my roommate, so that was even better.”
Modster’s statistics did not fully convey his performance given the circumstances.
“The thing we were mostly measuring was his demeanor out there and how he handled things,” Mora said, “and I didn’t sense any panic or any fear.”
UCLA was essentially finished by the time Rosen departed with his team trailing, 27-9. Many of the Bruins’ shortcomings came on defense, only a week after they had compiled their most complete game of the season against Oregon.
Washington (7-1, 4-1) stomped its way to 333 rushing yards, with tailback Myles Gaskin running for 169 and a touchdown. The Huskies averaged 5.7 yards per carry, more than enough production to offset a ho-hum day for quarterback Jake Browning in which he threw for 98 yards and had a pass intercepted by UCLA cornerback Darnay Holmes.
UCLA trailed 20-9 at halftime thanks to some familiar defensive problems. The Bruins missed two tackles on Lavon Coleman’s 35-yard catch and run late in the first quarter and extended an earlier drive on a late hit out of bounds by linebacker Kenny Young after having held the Huskies on a third-down play.
“Guys were fit up, we just missed tackles,” Mora said. “It was nothing schematically at all.”
There were also some new issues for the Bruins. Kicker J.J. Molson missed an extra-point attempt for the first time this season and UCLA allowed Washington’s Salvon Ahmed to return the ensuing kickoff 82 yards, setting up a short touchdown drive that ended on Coleman’s one-yard run that gave the Huskies a 17-9 lead.
Rosen’s only highlight was becoming the first player in the Pac-12 to throw a touchdown pass against the Huskies this season. It came early in the second quarter on an unusual formation in which the Bruins split out three receivers to one side and two receivers to the other before Rosen connected with tight end Jordan Wilson over the middle for an eight-yard touchdown.
The Bruins are left to wonder if it might be the last touchdown pass Rosen throws for a while.
“If Devon’s playing, then Devon is who we’ll talk about,” offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch said. “And we’re going to charge ahead and we are going to run our offense and we are going to run it to the best of the 11 guys out there’s ability.”
Follow Ben Bolch on Twitter @latbbolch
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