Reality Finally Catches Up with UCLA as Playoff Door Slams Shut

As the sun set in Los Angeles, fans who hadn't gotten their hearts ripped out by Jaelen Strong at the Coliseum saw opportunity in front of them. 

Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas A&M—and perhaps most importantly to the UCLA Bruins, Oregon—had all lost during a week of college football that saw the grim reaper take a victory lap through the polls. 

Not only could UCLA take hold of the Pac-12 race, but it could've become an overnight contender for a berth into the first ever College Football Playoff. 

Instead, a little-known assassin by the name of Kendal Thompson and the Utah Utes exposed the Bruins as frauds and shut the door on any hopes of making the playoffs. 

Wins over Virginia, Memphis, Texas and Arizona State had the Bruins rolling early. Memphis gave Ole Miss a run for its money, Virginia could very well end up in the ACC title game, Texas is still a tough team to beat with or without David Ash and Arizona State made it to the Pac-12 title game last year. 

So those four wins were impressive enough to move UCLA into the Top 10 of the polls, and with Saturday's massacre of the elite, the Bruins were poised to put themselves squarely in the playoff conversation with a win over Utah, a squad that hadn't beaten a Top 10 opponent on the road since 1961. 

But UCLA was a flawed Top 10 team. And Utah proved it. 

The Bruins were giving up 25 points per game heading into the week, including an embarrassing 35 points to Memphis. They had thrashed Arizona State and hung 62 on the board, but that was the first week the Sun Devils were without quarterback Taylor Kelly. 

One week later, you saw the difference in Arizona State as backup quarterback Mike Bercovici tossed for over 500 yards against USC. If UCLA were to face this team again, the narrative could drastically change. 

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Brett Hundley, as good as he is and as much as UCLA fans want him to be a Heisman Trophy contender, simply hasn't lived up to expectations. In two games this year, he hasn't even thrown for a touchdown. He'd been sacked more times (11) than he found paydirt through the air (seven) heading into Saturday night. 

But how exactly did the Utes, a team that—while it was 3-1—lost to lowly Washington State, expose UCLA? 

They pounded the ball and won the battle in the trenches. The Utes racked up 242 yards on the ground to UCLA's 137. Utah averaged 4.4 yards per rush. The Bruins? 2.7. 

Sure, Hundley had 269 yards through the air, a decent number. But 133 of those 269 yards—49 percent—came on two touchdown passes on busted coverage that almost any quarterback in America could've converted. 

The rest of the game, Hundley was a shell of himself. His offensive line, another weakness for UCLA, allowed Hundley to be sacked a whopping 10 times. 

On the flip side, Thompson showed the nation why the Oklahoma Sooners—who lost to TCU on Saturday—may have very well made the wrong choice when it came to selecting Trevor Knight for the job in Norman. 

While only being asked to throw 13 passes, Thompson still completed 10 of them for 95 yards and a touchdown. He also ran for another 83 yards on 19 carries. 

In all, Thompson either ran or threw for seven of the team's 18 first downs in a game where the rushing attack dominated Utah's tactical advantage. 

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The Utes, a decent yet still lower-tier Pac-12 team, never let UCLA, a team that was considered a playoff contender, get into a rhythm offensively. And they controlled the pace of the game on the ground. 

UCLA's playoff chances were a long shot even if they had won this game. They still have games slated with Oregon, Arizona, USC and Stanford. 

But all those games are at home, so a win against Utah on a night when college football was in a complete state of disarray would've set the stage for the Bruins to be on the inside track to represent the Pac-12—the Cinemax of college football—in the playoffs. 

Instead, Utah may very well have killed any hope of UCLA not only winning the Pac-12 and going to the playoffs, but also any chance of a team representing the Pac-12 in the final four.