Football to face Colorado in long-awaited start to 2020 season

Saturday’s season opener has been 343 days in the making.

The last time UCLA football took the field was for its final regular-season game of the 2019 season versus California. No conference championship, bowl, spring game or nonconference play followed for the Bruins, as the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench into the 2020 college football season.

That season has finally arrived for the Pac-12, and UCLA will kick off its campaign on the road against Colorado on Saturday.

The longer-than-usual wait between games has affected fans, players and coaches alike, but redshirt senior running back Demetric Felton said it was especially disorienting considering it will be his final year in Westwood.

“I’m just trying to take it all in,” Felton said. “There’s been a process getting here. And it’s fine because it doesn’t feel like the last, but as I’m going through, I’m like ‘Oh, wow, that was my last camp. This is going to be my last first game of the season.'”

Coach Chip Kelly said Felton was far from the only Bruin eagerly anticipating the start of the modified, pandemic-shortened season since they have all been stuck at home watching teams from other conferences take the field for months.

“If you’re not excited about it, I don’t think you have a heartbeat,” Kelly said. “You got to be excited about finally going out there and playing against another opponent and then seeing if all your hard work in what has been a really, really long offseason in a very different offseason pays off.”

With the conclusion of an unorthodox offseason comes a visit to Boulder, where UCLA hasn’t won since 2014. The Buffaloes, however, present a brand new look in 2020.

Coach Mel Tucker left for Michigan State after a season with Colorado, and former UCLA football coach Karl Dorrell took his place after a 13-year head coaching hiatus. Steven Montez is now on the Washington Football Team’s practice squad, and Dorrell named Sam Noyer the new starting quarterback.

The Buffaloes’ leading rusher last season – Alex Fontenot – was ruled out indefinitely after suffering an undisclosed injury late last week, and their leading receiver – Laviska Shenault Jr. – was drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars back in April.

Without Montez, Fontenot and Shenault, Noyer will have the weight of the Colorado offense on his shoulders, despite playing most of last season as a safety and special teamer.

“There’s a little film on (Noyer), and we know he’s a tremendous athlete,” Kelly said. “You’d think with somebody that athletic they’ll probably try to run him a little bit, so we’ve got to be prepared for the quarterback run, which is a different wrinkle, so those are some of the things that we’re getting our defense ready for.”

Noyer has appeared in nine career games at quarterback with the Buffaloes, with 179 passing yards, a 78.1 passer rating and a 51.2% completion percentage to his name.

The Bruins’ offense, on the other hand, has significantly more consistency, with junior quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson now entering his second season as the full-time starter. Four of the five starting offensive linemen made starts in 2019, and four of the five leading pass-catchers are back as well.

“It definitely feels good, just having the same offense now, nothing too different,” Felton said. “It makes you … be able to play faster and be a little bit more loose. You’re not thinking, you’re just playing and that’s when you play your best football.”

Sticking together as an offensive unit has proven to be difficult over the past few months because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Thompson-Robinson said. But in the short time the Bruins have been back on campus, the signal-caller said that time has been made up.

“When you’re in quarantine, it felt like guys were more on an individual basis, and now we’ve had four weeks to get together as a team and prep that every day,” Thompson-Robinson said. “I think that’s been the biggest improvement, getting that chemistry all back together as one and really moving as one team now.”

The chemistry, growth and progression of Kelly’s offense will be put to the test when UCLA and Colorado kick off Saturday at 4 p.m. in Boulder.