UCLA Football: 5 questions we still have

We all know we have no spring football going on. We all know head coach Chip Kelly officially cancelled the spring game just earlier this week.

What we don’t know, however, are the answers to the questions we had before the whole coronavirus pandemic.

We entered spring football with questions about coaches, players, eligibility, the works. While we’ve gotten some answers to some of these questions via Twitter or by putting two-and-two together, we never got the full slate of answers from actions on the field this spring.

So that leaves us now with the top five burning questions that we won’t get answered this spring for the UCLA Bruins football team.

1. Offensive Line Depth

Dorian Thompson-Robinson needs help. Every quarterback needs helps. The expression goes ‘it all starts up front’ and though my analytical background wants me to believe that expression less and less, it still rings true in the sense that you need five capable offensive linemen to make your offense tick. Boss Tagaloa is gone, Chris Murray transferred and Michael Alves medically retired meaning only Sean Rhyan, Duke Clemens and Jake Burton returned to an offense line that struggled a year ago.

What was the depth chart going to look like? Was there any changes to positions? Who filled in the gaps?

2. Where are we seeing the most of Demetric Felton?

Gone is Joshua Kelley, obviously, but how much are we going to see Felton in the backfield? How much were we going to see him in the slot? He’s as dynamic a playmaker with the ball in his hands that the Pac-12 has for the 2020 season and utilizing him properly will not only help the offense, help DTR but also will help get wins.

3. What does Atonio Mafi’s position breakdown look like?

The Bruins are no strangers to moving defensive linemen to the offensive line and Mafi was supposed to be the next in line for that switch. Where was he going to line up? How did he look at that position? This is in part with the first question listed above but certainly a growingly regular dynamic we’re getting used to in the UCLA trenches.

4. The tight end position. That’s the question.

Devin Asiasi is waiting to hear his name called in the NFL draft. Jordan Wilson and Matt Lynch transferred. Greg Dulcich just received a full scholarship. Michael Martinez, David Priebe, Michael Ezeike and Miami-transfer Evidence Njoku represent the rest of the tight end room. How much they were utilized. How often they were seen in 2-TE sets. Who was seen on the field more. All questions about this position that we won’t get answered.

5. Incoming freshman talent.

Spring ball is incredibly useful for finding out which incoming freshman are going to become integral assets to the team for that calendar year. It’s also vitally important for them to get their first taste of D-1 football, at game speed. These incoming freshman who early enrolled will not get that chance and we won’t get the chance to take a look at where those freshman were pencilled in the lineups.

So, those are my five burning questions that we won’t get to see for the UCLA 2020 spring campaign. What are your top questions you wanted answered?