Rosen rues his performance against Texas A&M, promises better

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Josh Rosen wandered aimlessly back towards the UCLA sideline, head hung, until he stopped at the 25-yard line of Texas A&M’s Kyle Field.

Taking off his helmet, Rosen crouched down and slammed the golden lid to the grass. He lingered in this position for a few seconds, looking around at an Aggie faithful that had tried its hardest all afternoon to make him regret his midweek comments about the effect of the crowd.

He finished Saturday’s 31-24 loss to the Aggies with 343 yards, a touchdown and a passer rating of 113.3, but afterwards, he thought mostly about the myriad of throws he put off target: the time he overthrew a streaking Kenneth Walker III, the two passes to Austin Roberts that he botched, the fourth-quarter interception that he thought he threw over the reach of A&M safety Justin Evans.

“I don’t care what any stats say – if I connected on some of those balls, we absolutely I think would be on the positive side of the scoreboard,” Rosen said. “You can’t be a quarterback in a big-time game like this, and miss some of those opportunities.”

Rosen focused mostly on the physical errors he made in a subpar first-half performance. He went 11-for-20 in the half with just one of his three interceptions, but the normally accurate passer struggled with ball placement.

“I just played an absolutely awful first half, and I’ll take complete responsibility for that, it will never happen again,” Rosen said. “It’s a quarterback-driven sport and you can’t have a quarterback play that bad in the first half and expect to win.”

Star defensive end Myles Garrett and the vaunted Aggie pass rush harassed Rosen all day, sacking him five times and hitting him another seven. Rosen even placed the blame for that pressure, though, on himself.

“I think I could have taken a lot more pressure off of the offensive line by changing some protections a little bit,” Rosen said. “Some plays, I just got to get the ball out a little quicker.”

Rosen was apologetic all throughout his postgame meeting with the media. His voice occasionally wavered uncharacteristically and he answered nearly every question by scolding himself and promising better.

It’s a healthy approach. After all, anything the Bruins do this year will ultimately be placed on the shoulders of their wunderkind signal-caller.

“Everything he does is going to be over-analyzed but he is that good,” said offensive coordinator Kennedy Polamalu. “He can get better and he knows that, but I wouldn’t trade Josh Rosen for any quarterback in the country.”

Rosen looked as talented as any quarterback in the country in the fourth quarter, when he led UCLA back from a 15-point deficit to tie the score in less than four minutes.

He completed 10 of his 13 passes in the final period for a whopping 177 of his yards. Two of his incompletions were interceptions, though, one coming on a bullet pass that bounced off the hands of Alex Van Dyke and into the arms of Evans, and the other a result of a tremendous leaping play by Evans to snare the ball.

“He’s gonna shoulder all of the blame, but he’s responsible for bringing us back as well,” said coach Jim Mora. “But he’s got to do a better – we’ve got to train him better at protecting the football and making better decisions.”

As Mora walked toward the celebratory horde of Aggies across the field after the game, he passed by Rosen, crouched there at the 25-yard line, thinking about the mistakes he’d made.

Mora patted Rosen’s side as he walked by, but the quarterback didn’t react. He finished scanning the raucous crowd and smacked his helmet twice into the ground, this time with more anger and frustration than before.

Then he got up, briefly spoke with former Bruin lineman Caleb Benenoch and shook hands with A&M quarterback Trevor Knight. He walked to the Bruins’ tunnel as the fans serenaded him, trying their best to make him regret his midweek comments about the effect of the crowd.

“Fif-ty thou-sand! Fif-ty thou-sand! Fif-ty thou-sand!”

The 12th man letting Josh Rosen know what 50k x2 sounds like. pic.twitter.com/vdXURkteHN

— Angel M. Franco:newspaper: (@angelmadison_) September 3, 2016

Rosen walked into the locker room, where he told his teammates he would never again play as poorly as he did in the first half.

“This is the worst half of football I’ll play all year, I promise you that,” Rosen told the media. “It will never happen again.”