SAN FRANCISCO — The 2011 UCLA football team’s roller coaster of a season has finally come to a close. It ended Saturday at the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl with a 20-14 loss to Illinois that had all the makings of a typical UCLA football game this season, the most paramount being unpredictability.
The more consistent offensive unit, if such a thing existed for the 2011 Bruins, failed to show up in San Francisco after a month of preparation under interim coach and offensive coordinator Mike Johnson. The pistol offense – UCLA’s heavily run-based attack – amassed just 18 rushing yards on Saturday.
“They had a great front seven so we knew that running the ball was going to be tough,” redshirt junior quarterback Kevin Prince said. “We weren’t able to get the run game going early on.”
Illinois (7-6) won its first game since Oct. 8 with a lot of help from its defense. The Illini sacked Prince five times and scored 13 of their 24 points by way of turnovers. After taking a 7-0 lead early in the second quarter, Prince fumbled a snap that led to an Illinois field goal. Additionally, Illinois’ third-quarter touchdown to take the lead came by way of an interception returned for touchdown when cornerback Terry Hawthorne jumped a hitch route and took Prince’s pass to the endzone.
The hapless UCLA defense, which gave up more than 35 points six times this season, brought their best stuff to AT&T Park, but it still wasn’t enough. The Bruin defenders didn’t give up a touchdown until early in the fourth quarter and limited the Illini to 326 yards of total offense, a number that seems miniscule when looking at the totals fr om the Bruins’ last two games in which USC and Oregon each racked up over 550 yards.
Illini quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase’s scrambling ability proved to be too much for UCLA. The sophomore ran the ball 22 times for 110 yards and threw for 139 more.
“He was slippery,” sophomore linebacker Jordan Zumwalt said. “He was giving us some trouble, that’s for sure. I don’t think that we expected him to run as much as he did, so it was tough trying to drop back into coverage and then having him leak through.”
The loss means UCLA (6-8) is the first team in college football history to play in a bowl and finish the season with eight losses. The Bruins finished the season on a three-game losing skid, a season that will be remembered most for the team’s totally erratic play.
“We were just an inconsistent team,” redshirt junior cornerback Andrew Abbott said. “You never knew what you were going to get. It was kind of Jeckyll and Hyde team, and that’s the team that showed up today. We weren’t a complete team. We didn’t play as a team.”
Now, the Bruins look forward to the future.
Beside being the last hurrah for 15 UCLA seniors, Saturday’s game means very little for that future. Gone with the seniors will be most of UCLA’s current coaching staff, as new coach Jim Mora will have control of the team going forward.
For Abbott, other players and fans, the end of the 2011 campaign is somewhat of a relief.
“We did what we did,” Abbott said. “I just want to sit back and reflect. Eventually, I want to move on and collect myself to get ready when we come back in January.”