UCLA can't match Washington State's offense in loss

PULLMAN, WASH. >> Last year, Washington State knocked off UCLA in dramatic fashion in the Rose Bowl, scoring the game-winning touchdown with three seconds left. Safety Adarius Pickett said he thought the Bruins “owed them one.”

When they had to a chance for revenge, the Bruins fell short. Playing without starting quarterback Josh Rosen (shoulder and hip), UCLA couldn’t keep pace with Washington State’s high-powered offense, falling 27-21 in front of a rain-soaked crowd of 29,301 at Martin Stadium. UCLA (3-4, 1-3 Pac-12) is off to its worst conference start in the five-year Jim Mora era.

“Kind of the same old story unfortunately,” Mora said. “We couldn’t run the ball, we couldn’t protect the passer.”

Backup quarterback Mike Fafaul made his first career start and oversaw an offense that was plagued by the same old issues: a poor running game and a suspect offensive line. He led a comeback attempt in the final five minutes, finding Darren Andrews for a 5-yard touchdown pass with 3:17 to go to bring the Bruins within six points, but a Jordan Lasley fumble on the next UCLA drive crushed the Bruins.

Fafaul finished 20 for 40 passing for 258 yards, three touchdowns with two interceptions.

UCLA finished with only 43 rushing yards on 25 carries, despite having all three of its running backs available for only the second time this season.

“I’ve never in my career been around a run game as awful as this,” Mora said. “That has to be the first thing we address. It’s staggeringly poor and we have to fix it.”

Through the recent offensive struggles, the UCLA defense had been able to keep the Bruins in games. But even they had not faced an offense as potent as WSU’s.

UCLA kept WSU to just 70 yards on its first three drives total while forcing an interception and a turnover on downs. The Bruins finally broke on an 18-play, 91-yard drive in the second quarter. The Cougars had the ball for more than seven minutes and capped the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run from Gerard Wicks that put WSU up 10-0.

The Cougars entered ranked first in the conference in total offense with 530.6 yards per game, but were limited to just 356 on Saturday. Quarterback Luke Falk finished 28 for 48 passing for 261 passing yards and one interception.

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“Thank God we have a defense that’s freaking — boy they play with some grit man, they play with some grit,” Mora said. “When you can play defense like that, you always got a shot as we did tonight. … I’ll take this defense and go play anyone with them, but we just have to help them by running the football.”

Without a running game to lean on, Fafaul found a security blanket in Andrews and hooked up with Andrews for his first career touchdown pass. Fafaul rolled out to his left and slung a 22-yard dart into a tight window for a UCLA score that brought the Bruins within three points in the third quarter.

The quarterback was targeting Andrews on the previous drive on a deep pass, but underthrew it while throwing into the wind and was intercepted by Marcellus Pippins. Andrews, who entered the game as UCLA’s leading receiver, extended his streak of consecutive games with two or more catches to 15 and finished with eight catches for 116 yards and two touchdowns.

WSU wasted little time responding to the UCLA score, punching in two touchdowns on back-to-back drives. The Cougars, known as one of the most prolific passing teams in the country, scored all three of their touchdowns on the ground, two from Wicks and one from Jamal Morrow. WSU converted four of five attempts on fourth down.