UCLA’s Offense Hindered

Steve Axman, UCLA’s offensive coordinator, can’t help but chuckle when he hears the oft-repeated criticism of the Bruins, that their attack is far too conservative, almost to the point of being boring.

“When I was here last time, people criticized me for throwing the ball too much, for being too wide open and not running the ball enough,” Axman said of his first tour of duty as offensive coordinator, in 1987 and ‘88, when the Troy Aikman-led Bruins averaged 34.1 points and went 20-4. “So I take that with a grain of salt.

“I believe that, no matter what, it’s my job to do what’s best to help our team win, not necessarily to help our offense succeed. There have been games where we’ve played to our defense, and, knowing they’re very strong, tried to play a ball-control, field-position game.

“Is that something I enjoy doing? No, not as much as playing wide-open football, because that’s my background. But the important thing is to do what’s necessary for our team to win and contend for a championship.”

On that count, Axman and the UCLA offense would have to be considered a success: The Bruins will start Saturday’s game at Stanford with a 6-2 record and are 4-0 in the Pacific 10 Conference, tied for first place with Washington State.

But there is a strong undercurrent of discontent among UCLA boosters and fans who are used to seeing the Bruins light up the scoreboard, who love watching them march up and down the field, even if opponents are tagging right along with them.

Most UCLA fans realize the Bruins won’t contend for the national championship every year, but they have come to expect an exciting brand of football. In fact, there seems to be a sentiment among them that they’d rather see UCLA lose a wide-open game, 39-37, than win a dull game, 6-3.

“There’s some merit to that,” said Steve Waters, a Los Angeles management consultant who has followed UCLA closely since 1972 and is a contributing writer to a Bruin web site. “It’s ‘Just look good, baby.’ This is the entertainment capital of the world, people want value for their dollar, and [a boring offense] makes for a lot of unhappy campers.

“Also, they’re sophisticated fans who know what good football should look like. They know repeated plunges into the line yielding nothing is not good football.... And they know in a conference of high-powered offenses, it would take a miracle to keep winning on defense and special teams alone.”

There was much fanfare and excitement surrounding the West Coast offense first-year Coach Karl Dorrell brought to Westwood. Visions of Denver’s Ed McCaffrey and Rod Smith, who combined for 2,919 yards on 201 receptions in the Broncos’ West Coast attack in 2000, danced through the heads of Bruin receivers.

Players and fans anticipated a wide-open attack that would control the ball through the passing game, using quicker drops and sending three, four and sometimes five receivers out on the same play.

But developments -- some expected, some not -- put a crimp in the Bruin offense. First and foremost was a knee injury in the first quarter of the season opener to quarterback Matt Moore, who did not start for six games before finally returning to the lineup Saturday night against Arizona State.

Though backup quarterback Drew Olson helped guide UCLA to five victories in six games, he is not as tall, athletic or quick as Moore and does not have the same downfield vision.

A young and inexperienced offense -- the Bruins have only one senior starter, flanker Ryan Smith -- was prone to mistakes and had a difficult time grasping the complicated new schemes, so coaches made a point of not force-feeding too much too soon.

Dorrell is also conservative by nature, and when a superb UCLA defense showed it could keep the Bruins in games and come up with big plays, the UCLA offense seemed to go into a risk-management mode -- get a second-half lead, avoid mistakes, let the defense hold on for victory.

The result: Three of the Bruin wins have been by three points, one by seven points and one by 10. UCLA ranks 110th among 117 Division I-A teams nationally in total offense at 299.6 yards a game, 102nd in rushing at 105.6, 79th in passing at 194, and 81st in scoring at 22.1 points.

Of 215 first-down plays, UCLA has run on 140 (65%) and passed on 75 (35%), a lopsided ratio that was even more skewed in a 23-20 victory over California on Oct. 18, when the Bruins rushed 22 times and passed four times on first down.

Worse, UCLA seems to have only two basic running plays, a blast up the middle, with the tailback following the fullback, and a stretch run to the outside, with the tailback following the fullback around tackle. There has been one pitch to a running back all season, and one end-around.

There is little deception, and defenses keying on the fullback have been reasonably successful at stuffing the run. And some think the play-calling is too predictable, with too many series going run-run-pass and the Bruins rarely stringing more than two or three passes.

“We’re trying very hard with this young group to stay out of trouble, and we constantly talk about avoiding negatives, staying out of long-yardage situations,” Axman said. “By the same token, I certainly realize we’re not veteran enough and probably not good enough to continually have 15-play drives without faltering. Our biggest problem is, we’ve had a tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot.”

Ironically, the very thing UCLA has tried to avoid -- long-yardage situations -- has been a constant. Of the Bruins’ 187 third-down plays this season, 64 of them, or 34%, have been third-and-eight or longer.

A breakdown on the line leading to a sack, a penalty, a dropped pass, a miscommunication between the sideline and the huddle ... all have been problems at one point or another.

“I believe fully in the coaches’ schemes and game plans -- I think they’re awesome -- but do we execute them to the best of our abilities? I don’t think so,” Smith said. “They’ve had the script, but we’ll put ourselves in worse positions because of sacks and penalties, and that makes the play-calling hard on the coaches.”

Smith admits his eyes lighted up at the new playbook, because he’s a huge Bronco fan and knows how lethal Denver’s attack has been. But as the season unfolded, and it became clear players were having problems with the complexities of the offense, those expectations were tempered.

“We have two true sophomore quarterbacks in their first year of the system,” Smith said. “We’re probably not opening the playbook like the coaches want to, but we’re young. We’re losing me, [backup tight end Blane] Kezirian and [backup center Tyson] Clayton on offense [next season], so they’re not losing that much.

“Tab [Perry, academically ineligible receiver] will come back, and just think how much better they’re going to be next year with a year of this offense under their belt. The playbook will probably open up more as we go, but with what we have now, it’s kind of right the way things are going.”

With Moore back, the offense showed signs of expanding Saturday night. Of 28 first-down plays, the Bruins passed on 10 and ran on 18, three of those runs on their final possession, when they were running out the clock in a 20-13 win.

Moore came out firing -- he passed for 186 yards in the first half -- and threw deep several times. The Bruins didn’t sit on a four-point, third-quarter lead, throwing often in the period. And they added a hint of deception on the game’s key play, sending Smith in motion to the right side before handing to Maurice Drew off left tackle midway through the third.

Arizona State free safety Jason Shivers took an aggressive but bad angle on the play, the Bruins executed all of their blocks, and Drew was free for an 83-yard touchdown run that gave UCLA a 17-13 lead.

“All we care about is winning,” Smith said. “I don’t care how ugly it is, a win is a win. We’re trying to go to the Rose Bowl. A lot of guys have been here, thinking we were going to do a lot of things, and it hasn’t been fun. Do we like going to the Las Vegas Bowl? The Sun Bowl? No. We want to go to the Rose Bowl.”