UCLA Football “Drops” Finale to UC Berkeley, 36-10

The UCLA Bruins were dominated on both sides of the ball tonight by the U.C. Berkeley Golden Bears, a team that had lost four straight and given up an average of 53 points in those four games. The Bruins’ anemic offense managed 10 points and 260 yards of offense against Berkeley, and fell to the Golden Bears, 36-10.

This game was all about the drops. Besides the usual drops by UCLA receivers (which were in abundance again tonight), the defense and special teams decided to get involved in the fun as well. Randall Goforth dropped two potential interceptions in the first quarter. Adarius Pickett dropped a sure pick six that could have cut the Berkeley lead to 8 early in the 4th quarter. And Ainuu Taua dropped a pooch punt that directly led to a Golden Bear touchdown in the 3rd quarter, extending the lead to 16.

Here is a recap of the second half:

Third Quarter

UCLA and Berkeley traded punts to start the second half.

On its second possession of the half, UCLA QB Mike Fafaul finally found a rhythm (his only rhythm of the game as it would turn out), leading the Bruins down the field for a touchdown to cut the lead to five, 12-7 Cal.

Cal answered like a hot knife through butter, capped by a long pass to Chad Hansen, which put the Golden Bears at the UCLA ½ yard line. The Golden Bears plunged into the end zone on the next play. 19-7 Cal.

On the ensuing kickoff, Ainuu Taua fumbled a pooch kick off back to Berkeley, who took advantage by scoring another touchdown. Once again, the big play was a long pass to Chad Hansen. 26-7 Cal.

UCLA answered with a nice drive, but the offense sputtered in the red zone and the Bruins settled for a 28 yard J.J. Molson field goal. 26-10, Cal. That would be all the points that UCLA would score.

The Golden Bears returned the kick to midfield and were able to get to the edge of field goal range before the end of the 3^rd quarter, with Cal leading by 16, 26-10.

Fourth Quarter

Cal finished its drive with a 29 yard field goal, to extend its lead to 29-10. UCLA fans were thinking about what could have been as Pickett let a sure pick six slide through his hands, in what could have been a momentum changer.

On UCLA’s next drive, Fafaul was intercepted and Berkeley converted the mistake into seven more points, increasing the lead to 36-10 with 9:41 left to play.

On UCLA’s next drive, . . .

ENOUGH.

Enough with the recap. Suffice to say that the teams didn’t score anymore points

I’ll summarize.

This game was a shit storm of the nth degree. An embarrassment on national television. The Bruins were dominated. Dominated. The score could have been so much worse had Berkeley done something inside the UCLA 10 yard line. As it was, the Golden Bears settled for five field goals, three of which were from inside UCLA's 10 yard line.

UCLA made perhaps the worst defensive team in college football look like the freaking Alabama Crimson Tide.

This was beyond Dorrellian. This was slightly better than 50-0 in the surrender whites.

Tonight, the Bruins players were either: (a) grossly unprepared by the coaches; or (2) have given up on the coaches. Either way, it is a fail of epic proportions, especially on offense. The defense, however, was not much better, as the Berkeley offense shredded the Bruins for 496 yards.

All of it was made even more embarrassing because of the asinine talk of a bowl game this week with what turned out to be misplaced hope in a goddamned pie-in-the-sky 5-7 record.

UCLA instead went 4-8. Tip of the cap to the realistic Bruins who called it after the Arizona State game. I had slightly more blue colored glasses than that. Boy was I wrong.

I sensed a team that didn’t give a flying you-know-what about what happened in the game today. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Heads need to roll.

Nobody on the staff should be safe.

Dan Guerrero: this ball is in your court.

Sound off in the comments.

Go Bruins.