Brett Hundley: Utah Film Breakdown

I had a non-conference breakdown of Brett Hundley last week, now I've taken a look at his play from last Thursday night at Utah and share my thoughts and analysis below. This on is about 2000 words shorter than the previous post, so you all have that to look forward too.

On his raw stats, Hundley had a decent day against the Utes. He completed 17 of his 27 passes for 211 yards with 1 touchdown pass and one interception. His rushing looks better. as he had 20 attempts for 85 yards and 1 touchdown, that also accounts for 3 sacks and the lost yardage (which is still stupid for the NCAA to count as negative rushing yards). He also caught a 7-yard touchdown from Devin Fuller and had a pooch punt get downed inside the 10-yard line.

Those numbers will get some context after going through the tape, so let's get to it.

Versus Utah

(Thanks to Adrian Ahufinger for posting this video)

Play by Play Breakdown

Alright, some notes from this game.

• Caleb Benenoch had some nice plays, but got beaten and outsmarted far too often. Will not fly against better competition.
• The middle of the field was not as underutilized as I thought it was watching the game. Several throws there got taken away by the pass rush and a couple throws were made, but not well executed by receivers.
• The drop by Lucien was huge in terms of momentum. Utah might have been much less of a threat in the second if that play hits. Going into the half up 28-17 instead of at 21-17 is a big deal in terms of game-planning.
• Brett Hundley ran for 67 yards and a TD on 9 designed runs (7.4 YPC). Scrambling he was far less effective when sacks and the IG penalty are taken into account, as he totaled just 18 yards on 10 plays, that also doesn't include the throw-aways and Interception returned for a touchdown while he was scrambling. Flat-out, protection has to be better, especially at picking up the blitz.
• Hundley also started off absurdly hot. Completed 13 of 15 in the first half with that dropped ball by Lucien. The second half was not kind. Just 4 of 12 with the interception, 2 sacks (including the intentional grounding penalty), and without that 36 yards TD run, he had negative rushing yards for the half. Utah did a great job at taking the downfield passing game away.
• UCLA relied on the read option much more than normal in the second half as hell. It worked well, but was concerning how easy the pass was taken away by just a decently talented secondary.
• The RBs did a decent job in pass protection when asked to do so. Each of the three had a mistake or two, but each also did something above and beyond the expected as well. I thought Manfro did much worse until I watched this. Can't poke holes in what James, Perkins or Manfro did there. If anything, Phillip Ruhl looked worse on his limited snaps at FB than any RB did.
• In total, there were 11 no doubt bad or low snaps that I counted from Jacob Brendel. 4 others were on the borderline of low, but didn't warrant mention. That simply can't happen. As a center, snap has to be the first thing you think of.
• Nate Iese played more than I thought, he was in on a number of rushing plays as well as the 5 or so plays listed here. And he was playing a traditional TE spot as opposed to a Y. Interesting to see how that develops moving forward.

Weirdly limited number of targets for Evans. The Utes did a nice job taking him out of the game, as he didn't flash open on many routes that I noticed. 3 drops is not good, but not a disastrous day by any means. Thomas Duarte and Jalen Ortiz were on the field for around 10 snaps each and were not targeted, though neither appeared to be open outside of one screen to Ortiz that Hundley passed up. Other than those two and Nate Iese, every player who ran a route was targeted.

After that analysis, here is an updated total on who Brett Hundley targets through this season along with the other stats included in the previous post. (Note: not including Hundley's TD catch on this sheet because it is a strict focus on Hundley's decision making.)

Not the flashiest game, but more adversity for Hundley than the previous three games combined. Pressure, injuries, elements, environment, snapping issues, eye injuries. Doubtful to encounter that many problems in just one game again this season, maybe in his career. It'll be interesting to see what Hundley is able to do against the California Golden Bears on Saturday. The Bears' defense has been awful and it should be a game where Hundley can put on an absolute show to make up for his bad game in Berkeley last year as a freshman.

Until next week, Go Bruins!