UCLA’s roller coaster of a season has left fans with whiplash

“Playing a game is kind of like being on a roller coaster – there’s ups and there’s downs and there’s turns. The only rule of a roller coaster is you can’t get off in the middle.”

Like coach Chip Kelly said following UCLA football’s (5-2, 3-1 Pac-12) win over Washington, the Bruins’ 2021 campaign has felt like an amusement park ride. While the team sits at five wins for the first time in Kelly’s tenure, UCLA’s season has been filled with ups and downs – and everything in between.

The peak

The Bruins’ 2021 rise began in steep fashion.

After blowing out Hawai’i 44-10 to give the blue and gold its biggest season-opening win in eight years, UCLA started to garner a fair amount of national attention.

A week later, the hype around the Bruin program reached a head.

In arguably its biggest game of the Kelly era, UCLA defeated then-No. 16 LSU, beating the 2019 national champions 38-27 in front of the largest Rose Bowl crowd in years. The victory also marked the Bruins’ highest-ranked win since the 2015 season, when UCLA beat then-No. 13 Utah.

The Bruins catapulted to No. 16 in the ensuing AP Poll after receiving only two top-25 votes before the game, tying its single biggest jump from unranked to ranked in over 50 years.

But rankings only go so far. Just from the eye test, the vibes of this team were off the charts.

The atmosphere in Pasadena was clearly the best it had been for some time, as the Bruin faithful were finally coming out in droves to support their team. Over 68,000 fans had the chance to check out the Bruins’ new Jordan Brand uniforms at sunset in one of the most picturesque venues in all of sports, marking a perfect start to 2021 for the blue and gold.

Above all, UCLA football was cool again, and it seemed as if Kelly had finally arrived in Westwood.

The loop

Entering week three, the Bruins were undefeated and knocking on the door of a top-10 spot in the rankings.

And then the Bulldogs quite literally threw them for a loop.

UCLA sustained its first loss of the 2021 season against Fresno State in one of the wildest Pac-12 After Dark games in conference history. The game featured six lead changes – four of which came in the last half of the fourth quarter – with the Bulldogs winning 40-37 on the back of over 450 passing yards.

The Bruins had many reasons for hope throughout the game, as multiple times it looked as if they had their signature moment of the season to remain undefeated. Junior linebacker Carl Jones Jr.’s forced fumble in the final frame or senior quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson’s apparent game-winning drive that ended with less than a minute remaining serve as vivid examples.

Theoretically, this should have been one of the high points of the season.

That is, until Fresno State quarterback Jake Haener flipped the game on its head.

Haener had one of the best – if not the best – individual performances of the college football season, as he finished with 455 yards and two touchdowns. Both of his touchdowns came in the final three minutes of play, including one with 14 seconds left that capped off a 40-second, 75-yard drive that sent the Bulldogs home with a win.

Kelly described it as one of the best quarterback performances he has seen at any level since the start of his coaching career in 1990, and unfortunately for UCLA, it singlehandedly changed the fortunes of its season.

Flying high in their best start under Kelly, the Bruins finally started to fall back down to Earth.

The drop

While UCLA was able to rebound after its loss to Fresno State with an impressive road win over Stanford, something about the team still felt off.

That feeling became overwhelmingly clear after its game against Arizona State.

The first half was fine. In fact, it felt as if the game between the Bruins and Sun Devils had the makings of an instant classic, with the two teams putting up 47 points combined in just the first 30 minutes of play.

The way Arizona State got its first-half points, however, was utterly embarrassing. The Bruins gave up two passing touchdowns of more than 50 yards in the first half while allowing 210 yards through the air to Sun Devil quarterback Jayden Daniels, showing the national television audience that UCLA’s passing defense was somehow even worse than the abysmal numbers indicated.

And if you thought that was bad, it only went downhill in the second half.

UCLA got shut out in the final two quarters of play and gave up 18 points to Arizona State, resulting in a 42-23 loss.

There appeared to be a blatant lack of fire from the majority of the Bruins on the field while the coaching staff looked completely in over their heads. Just as fast as UCLA fans flocked back to Pasadena for the LSU win, streams of fans donning the blue and gold left the Rose Bowl before the fourth quarter had even started.

That was rock bottom for UCLA so far in 2021, and given the humiliating nature of that moment, I doubt we see the Bruins go any lower.

The turn

Nonetheless, the Bruins have rebounded rather well from their worst loss of the season.

In the ensuing two games since it matched up against Arizona State, UCLA has won by a combined margin of 58-33, including an 18-point victory over Arizona.

It’s not the mere fact that it won these games – after all, these are two of the bottom feeders of the Pac-12 – but it’s the way in which the Bruins took home the victories.

On the field, UCLA looked like a completely new team. After a putrid performance from the Bruins’ defense allowed the Sun Devils to score a season-high 42 points and gain over 450 yards, the defensive unit bounced back with two straight games of fewer than 20 points allowed.

Offensively, UCLA has leaned all the way into its ground attack after being held below 200 rushing yards for only the second time all season against Arizona State, combining for 566 rushing yards versus Arizona and Washington.

These two victories for the Bruins represent the ideal version of what Kelly wants this team to be – a run-first, but still wildly imaginative, offense partnered with a defense that forces you to win in the short passing game.

The opponents weren’t the best in the conference, but they allowed UCLA to regain its footing and rediscover its identity heading into the home stretch of the regular season.

The wind down

Although the season has already felt like an entire roller coaster ride, the toughest portion of the Bruins’ schedule still awaits them.

After returning from its two consecutive road games with a pair of victories, UCLA will be welcomed home with a matchup against No. 10 Oregon – its highest-ranked opponent of the last two seasons.

A victory Saturday at the Rose Bowl would be a monumental triumph for the Bruins. It would mark their first top-10 win in over a decade and would immediately put UCLA back into the top 25. The national media understands the magnitude of this game, with ESPN’s “College GameDay” heading to Westwood on Saturday for the first time in the show’s history.

But while the Oregon contest will get the national spotlight, the more impactful game will come the following week against Utah, one of two teams currently ahead of UCLA in the Pac-12 South. The winner of that game will be the leader in the clubhouse to win the division.

From there, UCLA will have some time to recharge its batteries with a bye week followed by matchups against Colorado, USC and California, a trio of schools that all sit in the bottom half of the conference standings.

With momentum under their belt, the Bruins are in a good spot at this point in the season. A bowl game is all but guaranteed, and their first double-digit win season since 2014 is still on the table.

Even with the up-and-down nature of the campaign so far, one thing is for certain – the last two months of the season will be a wild ride.