UCLA football looks to maintain improved form heading into rivalry game

Like a fine wine, UCLA football seems to get better with age.

After suffering consecutive losses to Stanford and Oregon last year, UCLA strung together a series of impressive performances, winning five of its next six games to end the season.

The Bruins have taken a similar path this season. Following back-to-back losses to Utah and Oregon that figured to derail UCLA’s season, the Bruins responded with four straight wins, including two dominant performances in their most recent games. The Bruins are playing their best football in the final stages of their season.

But now, with a matchup against USC looming in less than two weeks, UCLA has a new challenge: maintaining its momentum through a bye week.

“I think it’s just really understanding your body and sort of just keeping everything going on the same path,” said redshirt junior quarterback Brett Hundley. “As we’ve built momentum up to this point, I think (we have) to keep that and get healthy, get fresh, but still understand that we still have two big games.”

“Big” may be too small of a word to describe the importance of UCLA’s final two games of the regular season. The second game is against Stanford, which UCLA has yet to beat since Jim Mora took over as coach.

But before that, the Bruins have their rivalry game against the USC Trojans, a contest that always comes with heightened emotions. While the Trojans have looked very challenging at times this year, the Bruins aren’t planning on using the extra week of preparation to focus on them. Instead, UCLA intends to spend this week simply improving itself.

“We’re not focused too much on the USC game,” said redshirt senior defensive back Anthony Jefferson. “We’re just focused on us right now and making sure that we do the right things leading up to that week so we’ll be prepared for (USC) next week.”

Specifically, the Bruin defense will spend this week improving its technique and fundamentals to maintain its recent improved play. Sophomore outside linebacker Myles Jack also said the defense isn’t happy with how it played against Washington Saturday and its inability at times to slow down the Huskies’ offense and run game.

There are plenty of internal issues the Bruins will look to fix this week while trying to remain focused on themselves, but Jack said there still is a challenge in not letting USC slip into his mind.

“It’s obviously gonna be in the back of your mind but we’re focused on ourselves, you can’t look ahead,” Jack said. “This whole week is gonna be emphasized on ourselves. We haven’t even mentioned them in our meeting rooms.”

Hundley, however, said he expects to start watching films on the Trojans Monday, which would give UCLA an extra week of preparation for its opponent while USC can’t start focusing on UCLA until after its game against Cal on Thursday.

“It’s an advantage for us, but at the same time, we gotta do what we gotta do and they gotta do what they gotta do so it comes down to that and our week of preparation,” said redshirt senior inside linebacker Eric Kendricks.