Bruin football ready to set tone for season, upset Stanford
By TuAnh Dam
Sept. 23, 2016 12:52 a.m.
The defending Pac-12 champions, one of the best players in the country and an eight-game losing streak all come into play Saturday when UCLA (2-1) opens conference play at the Rose Bowl against No. 7 Stanford (2-0, 1-0 Pac-12).
Although the pressure has been palpable at practice this week, the players and coaches say they have been blocking out the media hype and noise.
Redshirt junior offensive lineman Scott Quessenberry stated the conference opener could be the “tone-setter” for the rest of the season. Quessenberry and the seniors are 0-3 against the Cardinal, including a 56-35 beatdown last year. But despite the losing streak, the Bruins are focused on stopping this particular team.
[Related: UCLA falls to Stanford on the road 56-35]
“This team hasn’t beaten Stanford and Stanford hasn’t beaten this team,” Quessenberry said. “So we’re going to go into Saturday with that mindset and play with a chip on our shoulder and give it our all.”
The Cardinal have beaten the Bruins every way the past eight years, but especially in the run game. Stanford has averaged more than 200 yards a game on the ground against a Mora-coached UCLA team.
Junior running back Christian McCaffrey, the 2015 AP Player of the Year, broke the NCAA record for all-purpose yards, and 369 of them came at home against UCLA last year.
The Bruins revamped their defense to match up with more physical teams like the Cardinal. They tested their new schemes against similar hard-nosed football teams this year in now-No. 10 Texas A&M, UNLV and BYU.
“We haven’t played a patsy,” said coach Jim Mora. “We played three good football teams and so we are, in my opinion, prepared in terms of the intensity level of the game for what we’re going to get Saturday.”
The defense struggled to contain the Aggies’ quarterback Trevor Knight, particularly after senior Takk McKinley injured his groin.
But they found their groove against the Cougars, buoyed by the return of three defensive linemen in McKinley, redshirt junior Eddie Vanderdoes and senior Deon Hollins. BYU managed just 23 yards on 25 carries.
[Related: UCLA football’s effective defense against BYU to be tested by Stanford]
“We had an excellent synergy with the front seven,” said linebacker coach Angus McClure. “The linebackers did a tremendous job up front. There can be a lot of carryover.”
No other team will test their synergy like Stanford. But the challenge doesn’t faze any of UCLA’s players.
Quarterback Josh Rosen and junior running back Nate Starks said upsetting the Bruin’s Pac-12 rivals would mean a lot, but no matter who the opponent was, winning was always the ultimate end goal.
“We want to show that we can play with guys like that,” Starks said. “We’re always the underdog of this game and we want to show that we can play and we can beat these guys.”
If the Bruins come away with the win, it’ll be their first Pac-12 home opener win since 2013.
With four more conference teams heading their way to Pasadena this season – Arizona, Oregon State, Utah and USC – UCLA has a chance to set the tone it wants and builds the momentum it needs to contend for a Pac-12 championship.
What better way to do that than by dethroning the defending champs Saturday?
