It was an opportunistic team performance that allowed USC to stun its crosstown rivals Saturday afternoon. The Trojans created their luck, with defense and special teams forcing Bruin mistakes at key moments and the offense capitalizing when it mattered.

On Saturday, UCLA will face USC in a battle for the Pac-12 South title. The Bruins (8-3, 5-3 Pac-12) have defeated the Trojans (7-4, 5-3) for three straight years.

On Saturday, No. 19 UCLA (7-2, 4-2 Pac-12) will face a Washington State team that has shown significant improvement this year. After a 3-9 season in 2014, the Cougars (6-3, 4-2) have made their way to second place in the Pac-12 North this season, even putting themselves in position to defeat then-No.

The scoreline of UCLA’s 35-31 victory over Colorado was a fairly typical; one look at the stat sheet, however, will show just how misleading those numbers were.

On Saturday, No. 24 UCLA (5-2, 2-2 Pac-12) will face a Colorado team that is last in the Pac-12 South division. The Buffaloes (4-4, 1-3) are fresh off their first conference win of the 2015 season, but have lost four games in a row to the Bruins since 2011.

Football is a game where the stats aren’t foolproof. There aren’t ways to quantify how well an offensive lineman or defensive lineman controls the line of scrimmage, and there aren’t ways to truly measure how well a defensive back plays in man coverage.

After two weeks of misery, facing one of the hottest quarterbacks in college football, it seemed like UCLA was primed for another week of disappointment. Instead, it performed brilliantly, dominating in all facets of the game en route to a 40-24 victory over California.

Football is a game where the stats aren’t foolproof. There aren’t ways to quantify how well an offensive lineman or defensive lineman controls the line of scrimmage, and there aren’t ways to truly measure how well a defensive back plays in man coverage.

It was a small miracle that UCLA entered the third quarter Saturday within striking distance of its opponents. The first half was a miserable one for the Bruin offense, smothered by a combination of Arizona State’s solidity and its own miscues.

No. 7 UCLA (4-0, 1-0 Pac-12) returns home to the Rose Bowl Saturday against Arizona State (2-2, 0-1). The Bruins are currently undefeated and making headway into national rankings.