After Dismantling Arizona, Pac-12 Looks Like UCLA's to Lose

TUCSON, Ariz. — There is never a bad week in college football given how few chances there are to soak in the sport between the lines, but Saturday night offered one of the rare moments where the Pac-12 was the center of attention and the city of Tucson was the place to be.

Arizona is used to the national spotlight in college basketball, but in stark contrast to its hoops brethren on campus, the football team does not see all that many moments on center stage. Saturday was billed to be a turning of the page for Arizona football, which still seemed to be overlooked despite winning the Pac-12 South and upsetting Oregon last year.

For a time, with the ZonaZoo student section going wild and a campus full of optimistic fans, it looked like that moment just might come for a program that is still searching for respect outside of its Pac-12 colleagues.

Sophomore quarterback Anu Solomon marched down the field in a tick less than three minutes on the Wildcats' opening drive and lofted a beautiful touchdown pass to Nate Phillips. The defense had caused a pair of false starts, and there was a huge chance for capturing some early-game momentum. Arizona looked primed and ready to do what BYU couldn’t last week—hand UCLA its first loss of the year.

In the face of that, some teams might blink. Some might struggle. Others would get rattled at the very least.

That was the case again in Week 4, only it happened in UCLA’s favor.

In previous years UCLA would be one of those teams. The Bruins would start slow, fail to get the key first down or just generally not show up. In some cases, the game would be over before it began.

This year’s Bruins didn’t blink on Saturday night. This year’s squad didn’t mind staring down a Top 20 opponent on the road in its league opener. This year’s team, well, it kind of smiled back in anticipation of a difficult situation.

Rick Scuteri/Associated Press

UCLA, as was readily apparent in a 56-30 destruction of Arizona that wasn’t as close as the score indicated, didn’t seem fazed at all by the attention on the home team or the increase in doubters following a key injury to star linebacker Myles Jack.

In fact, the Bruins turned the Wildcats' coming-out party into one of their own as the class of the Pac-12 and the clear front-runner in the conference race to place a team in the College Football Playoff.

“UCLA was about what we thought they would be. They were a good football team, and a talented and athletic team like I expected,” a somewhat dejected Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez said. “You have to give them credit, they played well.”

Not, apparently, all that well for UCLA's head coach.

“I like to stop the run. So I would say nothing. Nothing impressed me,” Jim Mora deadpanned after the game. “We have to do a better job. For a team to be able to run the ball on us like that is inconceivable to me.”

Arizona did rush for 353 yards on the Bruins, with most of them coming in the second half after Solomon went down in the second quarter. That would have been notable had the Bruins not scored touchdowns on six of their seven first-half drives to put the game away before the band could take the field at halftime.

No football coach will ever be completely happy with a win, and Mora certainly saw more negatives than positives when it came to assessing his team a half-hour after leaving the field. His temperament is rarely what one expects after a blowout victory, but it’s also indicative of the fact that there is a different standard of excellence in Westwood this season as the team is finally living up to some clearly justified preseason hype. 

Rick Scuteri/Associated Press

“Honestly, we went and played the same game. We didn’t want to change anything we did just because we had a few guys hurt,” wide receiver Jordan Payton said after a 136-yard, one-touchdown night. “The defense stepped up and got big stops, and then we went out and did what we needed to do (on offense).” 

The Top 25 rankings and amount of talent on the roster were (and likely always will be) clearly tilted in favor of UCLA coming into this week’s matchup, but there was fear that the losses of three of the team's best defenders—stud defensive lineman Eddie Vanderdoes, Jack and All-Pac-12-caliber cornerback Fabian Moreau—combined with starting a true freshman quarterback in a difficult environment could prove disastrous.

Instead, it was nothing but a victorious and near-flawless performance. There were few halftime adjustments (most of which UCLA quickly scrapped) and no pressing to make up for the loss of injured players.

“Not at all,” quarterback Josh Rosen said, who finished with 284 yards and three total scores in his first Pac-12 contest. “We want to score 500 points every time we step on the field.” 

That may not be possible, but it is a window into the attitude the team is taking this year. It’s part of the reason why, after passing the quarter pole of the season, a true national championship contender resides in Los Angeles and most people are not talking about the Trojans. 

By midday on Sunday, the Bruins will find themselves as the highest-ranked Pac-12 team and one of only three undefeated teams in the conference. Most early playoff projections will have the team in the final four, and there will be even more talk nationally about how, in what has been a wild season so far, there’s not as much separation as we once thought between UCLA and the Ohio States and Baylors of the world. 

The Bruins will likely be favored in every game the rest of the season. They certainly will hold a talent and depth advantage at nearly every position compared to their future opponents. As we caught a glimpse of last week against BYU, following a number of turnovers and defensive mental mistakes, the only team that may be capable of knocking off UCLA this year may be UCLA itself.

“When we beat ourselves, we lose games,” added Payton. “We understood what kind of stage this was and how many people were watching with a sold-out crowd.” 

Rick Scuteri/Associated Press

A Thursday night road trip to Northern rival Stanford represents a potential stumbling block in mid-October, and the Cardinal have been quite fond of dashing the Bruins’ championship hopes the past few years. Don’t forget two tricky games to close out the regular season against Utah—a legitimate Top 10 team following its shocking dismantling of Oregon—and crosstown rival USC too. 

There is always a chance for a stumble in the wilderness that is Pac-12 football, and that’s something UCLA knows better than most. The doubts about the powder blues will never quite go away, but there seems to be something in the water in Westwood that’s a bit different with this year’s team. 

“If that’s the case, then (the media) can keep doubting us,” offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone said. “Our kids are a hard-nosed group. They love the challenge.” 

UCLA looks ready for the challenge of being the Pac-12 favorite. If the Bruins play like they did on Saturday night in Tucson, the Pac-12 looks like theirs to lose.

You can follow Bryan Fischer on Twitter at @BryanDFischer.