UCLA secondary aims to overcome recent struggles against Arizona State

Perhaps no aspect of UCLA football entered the season with more question marks than a secondary that returned no starters from 2012.

An overhauled defensive backfield held up throughout the majority of the season, limiting all opponents to less than 290 yards and all but one under 250 yards passing until last Friday. In the last two weeks, however, the secondary has looked a little bit more like its experience would indicate.

Washington’s starting and backup quarterbacks each played one half of the game and combined for 330 yards through the air against UCLA, six days after Arizona became the first team to score multiple passing touchdowns against the Bruins in a fourth quarter.

While Washington receiver Damore’ea Stringfellow racked up a season high for opposing receivers with 147 yards against UCLA, he might have had 38 more yards and a touchdown to his name, had a hands-to-the-face flag by a Huskies lineman not wiped out the play.

According to sophomore cornerback Ishmael Adams, the 41-31 win against Washington provided his team a look at a long-ball situation that UCLA needs to fix with two scheduled games left in the season.

“We have to make sure we make those corrections … compete on those deep balls and hopefully make plays on them,” Adams said.

Adams said he felt that the Bruins’ propensity to lose track of receivers cost UCLA last week, with Washington receivers often getting open after completing the initial moves of their routes.

“It wasn’t the prettiest look last (Friday), so we’ve come into this week really looking to work,” Adams said. “Honestly … our eyes were bad. With double moves, you have to stay with perfect eyes and not look back at the quarterback, because that’s when they get away from you.”

Redshirt senior cornerback Brandon Sermons, who racked up a career high with seven tackles, said that UCLA showed man coverage for the majority of the game, allowing for the team to generate more pressure with its defensive front. Cornerbacks like Sermons and sophomore Fabian Moreau could be spotted without safety help on downfield receivers during Washington’s two 40-plus-yard gains through the air.

Though UCLA’s secondary has been at its shakiest as of late, freshman safety Tahaan Goodman mostly escaped notice in fill-in duty Friday night, minus forcing a fumble on running back Bishop Sankey to end Washington’s second drive of the game. Goodman entered the game when sophomore starter Randall Goforth briefly left the field with a knee problem. Coach Jim Mora saw that his first-year defensive back blended right in with the rest of the defense.

“Quite frankly, I didn’t notice how much he played until we watched the game film on Saturday. And that’s a good thing,” Mora said. “He didn’t stand out as a guy that was making errors or looked like he was uncertain of what he was supposed to do. … That guy’s going to be a really good football player. He makes plays.”

Arizona State quarterback Taylor Kelly figures to threaten the Bruins more with sheer volume of passes than repeated shots down the field. Kelly owns more attempts than any quarterback trotted out against UCLA this season, save for Cal’s Jared Goff. Kelly owns 68 more official throws than the next quarterback in the conference and has connected for gains of 29 yards or more through the air in all but one game this year.

While Kelly has 74-, 69- and 51-yard passing touchdowns on the season, none of the three completions necessarily featured the quarterback burning secondaries: The former two scores saw Kelly’s receivers turn catches no greater than 30 yards into big scores, while the 51-yarder featured his target bobbling a jump ball right in the presence of a defender before scoring.