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Halfway through the season, adjustments continue for Brett Hundley

UCLA quarterback Brett Hundley drops back to pass against California on Saturday.
(Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
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When you’re Brett Hundley, at one point in this season a dark-horse Heisman Trophy candidate, there are constant expectations.

Many pundits — including this one — thought Hundley was going to have a field day against Cal last weekend. Statistically, the Bears’ have the worst secondary in the country, and their defense has given up more than 40 points three times this season.

Hundley didn’t have a horrible game against Cal, but he also didn’t look like a player with the ability to take over and win games by himself. He put up good numbers — 330 yards passing and 94 yards rushing with three total touchdowns — but most of those passing yards came on wide receiver screen passes and didn’t have much to do with Hundley. Cal was protecting against the deep ball, so Hundley went short, over and over.

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“They dropped guys deep and basically just made us take underneath stuff the whole game, which we were fine with doing,” Hundley said on Monday. “We marched down the field every drive, but the one thing we took away was turnovers. We have to stop those.”

Ah, the turnovers. Hundley fumbled twice (one lost) and threw a costly interception. Both turnovers led to Cal touchdowns. He wasn’t wearing a bulky elbow brace that has been on his arm for most of the season but was wearing a tight compression sleeve. After the game, Coach Jim Mora said that difference could have affected his quarterback, something Hundley confirmed on Monday.

“I don’t like placing excuses on anything,” Hundley said. “Obviously I don’t fumble a lot, I rarely fumble, but this game it came out twice.… Like I said, if it’s the sleeve, if it’s me just carrying it, whatever that may be, obviously it made a difference.”

Hundley started wearing the brace after injuring his elbow during the Texas game in early September. It’s debut came against Arizona State — the best game of Hundley’s season and one of the best games of his career. He threw for 355 yards and four touchdowns, and added 72 yards and a touchdown on the ground without any turnovers. After the game, he said that because the brace was so bulky, it affected his balance and was “definitely an adjustment.”

When asked if there was any adjustment to playing without the brace, Hundley said, “No, not really.”

“The brace, I wanted to get rid of it,” he added. “This is the first game coming back, so always coming off an injury, it’s a different mind-set to make sure it’s where it needs to be, but I felt real comfortable with the brace.”

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The worrisome thing is that this sort of preventive defense has become a pattern for UCLA opponents. Oregon had a similar sort of strategy to slow Hundley down. It wouldn’t be all that surprising to see more of these types of games from the quarterback who is supposed to be able to do it all.

“This year, with as explosive as our receivers are, we see a lot of teams drop eight,” Hundley said. “That’s what Cal was doing, and they did a great job of doing it. They made us take underneath routes, and teams are going to make us take the five-, six-yard throws to go down the field. That’s sort of what we’ve seen teams do a lot recently.”

For more Bruins observations, follow Everett Cook on Twitter @everettcook

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