Utah and UCLA meet late tonight with two balanced offenses that can beat you in the air and on the ground. It's not shocking that UCLA has those capabilities as they did it well last year and returned mostly everyone on offense with a very deep group of receivers led by Shaq Evans. Utah's defense has struggled agaisnt dual threat offenses including Chuckie Keeton from Utah State. Sean Mannion came in here and just threw his way to victory exposing Utah's secondary. UCLA has been excellent on third down converting at nearly 70% and that transitions well int he red zone where they are converting 71% of those opportunities into TD's. Utah is a tough place to play, but UCLA put up big numbers at Nebraska after a slow start. Tonight they don't have to worry about the early start in a different time zone and should be good from the start. Brett Hundley will have another great game tonight and will be getting more hype from NFL scouts.
However, I can't play the spread on this with 70% of the public feeding on the hype they have quickly forgotten UCLA's struggles. Even at Nebraska it seemed like they were going to have troubles stopping their offense. Utah has a better offense and clearly has turned it around with the dual threat Tyler Wilson leading the show. Wilson is bigger, strongers, faster and he's making better decisions than a year ago. It helps when you bring in a great coach to run the offense like Dennis Erickson. Erickson has led a balanced unit and Wilson has been poised all year long. UCLA's secondary is very beatable. They basically had to start over from last year's team that ranked 82nd and so far this season they are not getting as much push up front and creating sacks. Tyler Martinez who is not known for his arm threw 3 TD's and 0 interceptions against UCLA. Utah is not afraid to throw the ball down field and the speedy Dres Anderson should put up a monster game for Utah keeping them in this battle. They can score in the red zone 9-12 at home this year for 75%. UCLA is allowing 62% red zone conversions, but going against a balanced offense on the road will give them more issues. UCLA allowed 75% red zone TD% last year on the road. I see a ton of points here especially with field position being a big issue. Most of the time these punters out kick their coverage especially in the altitude. I bet Shaq Evans runs one back here for UCLA as Utah is allowing 17.20 yards per return. I think both teams will be set up great on field position if their defense is able to make any stops.
In the end I think UCLA gets a close win, but both of these defenses are too agressive and the offenses are smart enough to counter with play action passes especially UCLA who will run that out of the read option offense and come up with big passing plays. Both teams come off a bye, but it won't help their defense. Mora out of the bye last year gave up 43 poitns on the road while Utah gave up 38 points at home after their bye week last year. Both offenses put up big numbers there too and expect them to benefit the most from the extra preparation.
