Moore’s Return Yields Mixed Results

UCLA did not enjoy the lopsided victory it was hoping for Saturday, depriving the Bruins of a chance to give Matt Moore significant playing time at quarterback, but Moore did play the final two series of the first half, completing four of eight passes for 41 yards.

Moore, a sophomore who suffered a knee injury in the first quarter of the season opener at Colorado and lost his starting job to Drew Olson, would not term his brief outing a success.

On his second play, Moore fumbled after being hit by Lamon Means on a safety blitz before he could hand the ball off to Tyler Ebell, and the Wildcats recovered.

On his next possession, after completing passes of 13 yards to Ryan Smith and 17 yards to Junior Taylor, Moore’s pass to Craig Bragg was tipped by Means and intercepted by Clay Hardt.

“The safety came up and I didn’t see him, and he made a nice play,” Moore said. “But all in all, I felt good. My timing was on, and I was in sync.”

Is Moore ready to play full time?

“I could,” he said. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I could.”

UCLA coaches determined before the game that Moore would enter on the Bruins’ fourth possession, so Olson was not surprised by the switch.

“We need two quarterbacks ready to play, and Matt needs to get repetitions so he feels comfortable,” Olson said. “I thought he looked good.”

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UCLA’s victory included a potentially significant loss when junior cornerback Matt Ware, the Bruins’ best pass defender, suffered a sprained left ankle when he was accidentally leg-whipped by teammate Brandon Chillar during a tackle with 34 seconds left in the third quarter. Ware did not return, and he’s questionable for next week’s game against California.

“He was in a lot of pain,” Coach Karl Dorrell said. “If you judge by the expression on his face, it looked pretty severe.”

Dorrell said Ware would probably get the ankle X-rayed, but Ware said he had no such plans. After icing the ankle, it felt stiff, but the pain subsided, he said.

“I don’t plan on missing any time,” Ware said. “I’ll see how it feels [today] and we’ll go from there.”

Center Robert Chai suffered a hyperextended right knee in the second quarter but played the entire second half, and backup receiver Joe Cowan suffered a bruised quadriceps in the first half and did not return.

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UCLA, which was flagged 22 times for 240 yards in its previous two games, was penalized only six times for 60 yards Saturday, and instead of being hurt by flags, the Bruins benefited from two critical calls.

Arizona was ruled offside on Justin Medlock’s 30-yard field-goal early in the third quarter. UCLA rejected the field goal, took a first down at the Wildcat seven-yard line and scored on Manuel White’s five-yard touchdown run to cut Arizona’s lead to 21-17.

In the fourth, with the Bruins trying to run out the clock and clinging to a 24-21 lead, Olson threw incomplete on third and 10 from his 20-yard line. But Arizona’s Bryan Copeland was called for a 15-yard facemask penalty against Olson, giving the Bruins a first down and enabling them to run almost three more minutes off the clock before punting.

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Bragg caught six passes for 105 yards and moved to eighth on UCLA’s career receptions list with 121, and to 11th on the receiving yardage list with 1,816.