Two desperate teams met in Tempe Friday.
Only one stayed for all four quarters.
“Am I hurt, disappointed, angry?" UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel said. "Absolutely. All of the above.”
The UCLA football team jumped out to an early 17-0 lead in the first 12 minutes of the first quarter but allowed a 55-10 run by ASU to dash what was left of its slim bowl hopes.
“Obviously, as I said at the outset of the season, we wanted to be in the postseason again this year, to keep the momentum,” Neuheisel said. “This is a little bit of a setback, but I think when the dust settles, we'll look and see exactly why we took this step back and what we could have done to avoid it, and we'll be a better program for it.”
By Rashad Abdullah
The Bruins (4-7, 2-6 Pac-10), aided by a blocked punt, totaled 148 yards in the first quarter, with sophomore quarterback Richard Brehaut tallying one rushing touchdown and one passing touchdown.
“We’d been struggling with our pass game all year and today we finally proved we can have that as an asset to our offense,” Brehaut said after throwing for 321 yards and three touchdowns. “Unfortunately we just couldn’t establish balance with the run game.”
The Bruins came in ranked No. 33 in the nation in rushing offense, but only amassed 121 yards on the ground Friday, 55 of which came on one play.
“This is a tremendous league, and when people adjust, we have to be able to adjust back,” UCLA offensive coordinator Norm Chow said. “[ASU] was No. 18 against the rush, so we felt like we had to throw some.”
Balance was a problem throughout the second half for UCLA, who trailed since the waning moments of the second quarter.
“We knew they were a very stout defense, and we wanted to make some plays down the field,” Neuheisel said. “We took some shots, and we hit some and missed some.”
The most crucial sequence of the game happened in the early moments of the third quarter.
With the Bruins down just four, two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on the Sun Devils (5-6, 3-5) gave UCLA a first and goal at the ASU 6-yard line.
After three plays got the ball down to the one, Neuheisel sent in redshirt sophomore running back Johnathan Franklin to attempt to regain the lead.
Opting to forgo a more conventional under center formation, the Bruins lined up in the shotgun to move the ball just a few feet.
“If we were going to run a quarterback sneak, we would have,” Neuheisel said. “We were hoping [Franklin] would [jump] over the top. I don’t know why he didn’t do it.”
ASU linebackers Lawrence Guy and Gerald Munns subsequently stopped Franklin shy of the goal line to preserve the Sun Devil lead.
Just three plays later, ASU sophomore running back Cameron Marshall broke a 71-yard touchdown run.
“The game got away from us,” Neuheisel said. “I'm really disappointed about not being able to punch it in.”
Reach the reporter at tyler.emerick@asu.edu
