UCLA football fine-tunes defensive moves before Spring Showcase

On the final day of spring practice, everything came full circle.

The emerging UCLA pass rush dominated, just as it had in the first two weeks of spring.

Rising junior Matt Dickerson once again showed a powerful bull rush, breaking through the line for a couple of plays in the backfield. Meanwhile, when Dickerson wasn’t applying pressure in the pocket, his fellow starting defensive end – rising senior Takkarist McKinley – had his back.

McKinley was flying off the edge, just as he has all spring. Since the new 4-3 concepts were added to UCLA’s defense this offseason, McKinley has been able to play at his two favorite spots on the line: the 5-technique and the 6-technique. Last year, playing in mostly a 3-4 scheme, the 255-pound McKinley was forced to play more on the inside of the defensive line – in the 3-technique, pitted against offensive guards.

“I feel like the (4-3) defense is really built around me at that razor position,” said McKinley, using the term “razor” to refer to his new outside position. “The stuff that I was doing last year – I was playing 4i (technique), 3-technique, and that was all new to me. So now I get to line up in space and do what I’ve been doing my whole life.”

In 2015, even though he was undersized against some of the guards he was facing, McKinley still managed to notch 4.5 sacks – third-most on the team. This year, however, playing his natural position on the outside, McKinley believes he can finish near the top of the conference in sacks.

“My thing is speed. So now that I’m in the 5-technique and the 6 and stuff like that, I get to really show my explosiveness and my speed and my quickness,” McKinley said. “Me and (rising senior rush end Deon Hollins), we really believe we can lead the Pac-12 in sacks; like us two at (No.) 1 and (No.) 2.”

The defensive end trio of McKinley, Hollins and Dickerson will have the benefit of one more key addition this year: Keisean Lucier-South. The 6-foot-3 edge rusher is the dark horse of the group after redshirting his true freshman season at UCLA last year. He showed flashes in fall camp last August, even drawing comparisons to former UCLA pass-rush standout Anthony Barr.

Pass game down, run game up

Quarterback Josh Rosen didn’t have one of his best practices of the spring, but that wasn’t entirely his fault. Rarely did the rising sophomore have adequate time to throw the football, as he was forced out of the pocket multiple times by UCLA’s dominant pass rush. On one of his first passes of 11-on-11s, Rosen threw a hitch route to the right side that was intercepted by rising redshirt senior cornerback Randall Goforth, and returned for a touchdown.

If it weren’t a noncontact practice setting, Rosen would have likely sustained many hits and sacks in the backfield.

Despite the difficulties with pass protection and execution, the UCLA run game thrived, as it has all spring. Rising sophomore running back Soso Jamabo broke through the A-gap twice for long runs, after the offensive line set up a nice blocking wedge. On both runs, Jamabo illustrated his vision and patience, waiting for the hole to open up.

Aside from Jamabo, the two other featured running backs in UCLA’s offense – rising sophomore Bolu Olorunfunmi and rising junior Nate Starks – broke off long runs of their own. Starks showed some fancy footwork in juking a couple defenders on the second level of the defense.

Spring Showcase on Saturday

UCLA’s Spring Showcase will be at Drake Stadium this Saturday at 11:30 a.m. While the setting of the showcase will be different this year – last year’s Spring Showcase was at the Rose Bowl – the content of the event will be about the same, with no score taken and the setup more like a practice.

Coach Jim Mora said the main point of this is to protect the players’ health.

“We’re going to try to make it eventful, fun and interesting,” Mora said. “It will not be a full-contact scrimmage. I just don’t think it’s in the best interest of our players to do so.”

Snoop’s son speaks

Cordell Broadus, the rising redshirt freshman and son of rapper Snoop Dogg, spoke to the media Thursday after practice. It was the first time Broadus talked with the media since quitting the team last fall and then re-joining during winter.

One of the main reasons for quitting initially, Broadus said, was because he was going through “a lot of family issues.” Specifically, Broadus’ grandmother died of lupus around the start of last football season.

“I was in a state where I wasn’t mentally there,” Broadus said. “I feel like I wasn’t going to give it my all with going through what I was going through. So I decided that I wouldn’t play last year.”

But once the 2015 football season got into full swing and Broadus started watching some of UCLA’s regular season games, he said he started to miss football significantly.

“I couldn’t even sleep at night because I was thinking about football so much,” Broadus said.

It was about six months ago that Broadus began considering rejoining the team. Soon after, he went to Mora, who agreed to let Broadus back into the program.