Josh Rosen questionable as UCLA faces critical game

The parity in the Pac-12 can be a curse for the conference as it tries to break into the College Football Playoff, but the wild weekends on the West Coast continue to fuel the UCLA football team’s hopes for a chance at the conference championship.

The Bruins (3-3, 1-2 Pac-12) say they are down but not out of the Pac-12 race, entering Saturday’s game at Washington State at 7:30 p.m. The unpredictability in the Pac-12 South gives them hope, but they can’t afford many more missteps.

The Bruins could easily leave Pullman, Wash., at 1-3 in Pac-12 play for the first time under head coach Jim Mora. Their starting quarterback’s health is still a question. They haven’t had a running threat in nearly a month. They’re facing a surging team that just knocked off Stanford, something UCLA hasn’t done in almost a decade.

At a critical point in the season, UCLA is just going to “keep pushing,” defensive lineman Eddie Vanderdoes said.

“There’s a big fork in the road for us,” center Scott Quessenberry said. “You can go one of two ways: We can start turning on each other or we can really come together, back-to-back and start rifling off wins. Thus far, so far after the (Arizona State) game, I feel like we’ve done a good job of sticking together.”

When UCLA has the ball

For at least four weeks, the Bruins have said they’re close to breaking through on offense. Close will not cut it for much longer as UCLA starts the second half of its season.

“It has to happen now, to be honest,” running back Soso Jamabo said of turning around the offense. “It’s disappointing for me, it’s disappointing for the whole RB room. It’s something that we have to play with a chip on our shoulder and let it hang and start balling.”

The running backs will especially need to step up Saturday if starting quarterback Josh Rosen is sidelined with shoulder and leg injuries. If the star sophomore is out, redshirt senior Mike Fafaul will take the reins.

The Bruins are confident in the backup, despite Fafaul’s rough outing last week in which he completed nearly as many passes to Arizona State defenders (two) as he did to UCLA receivers (three).

The first six games in offensive coordinator Kennedy Polamalu’s scheme have been difficult, yet he and the team have no reservations about changing the offensive system this offseason.

“We said this offense was a system of what they did well here in the past and what we believe will carry us through a season, not just for one game or one opponent, and I really believe that,” Polamalu said. “The guys are bought into it, they’re bought into it. They’re working hard and I appreciate that.”

When Washington State has the ball

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As if WSU’s offense wasn’t prolific enough with the nation’s most accurate passer and four 200-yard receivers, the Cougars are discovering their running game.

WSU ran for more than 100 yards in each of the past three games — all wins — and the team’s 149.2 rushing yards per game is a huge jump from last year’s 80.5, which was last in the conference.

In some ways, WSU has the running game UCLA wishes it had. The Cougars have three backs who excel in different ways, and unlike the Bruins, have found a way to complement and coexist.

James Williams (37 carries, 265 yards) is WSU’s Jamabo: shifty and quick. Gerard Wicks (40 carries, 197 yards) is powerful and bruising, a fitting counterpart to UCLA’s Bolu Olorunfunmi. Jamal Morrow (43 carries, 272 yards) is the best of both, the WSU equivalent to Nate Starks.

“It creates a whole ’nother animal for you to handle,” defensive coordinator Tom Bradley said of WSU’s emerging running threat.

WSU’s greatest weapon remains quarterback Luke Falk’s right arm. The junior leads the nation in passing percentage at 74.1 percent, despite throwing nearly 50 times a game. He will match up with a UCLA secondary that leads the Pac-12 in pass defense efficiency and allows opposing quarterbacks to complete only 48.8 percent of passes.