UCLA's Offense Is... Decent? Interesting?
Many think that Chip Kelly has lost his touch, but UCLA is not without intrigue.
I’m not going to say that Chip Kelly’s offense in his third year at UCLA is good. This is a group still firmly within the middle of the pack in most offensive advanced metrics, including 42nd in success rate (44.7 percent) and 77th in explosiveness (1.21), neither of which is especially noteworthy. It’s also not a group with a distinctly awesome form of attack being dragged down by a weak counterpart. The rushing attack is 43rd in success rate (45.5 percent), as is the passing attack (43.9 percent). There’s nothing here that really draws the eye, and there’s certainly nothing here that indicates Kelly’s influence, given how explosive his rushing attacks usually were at Oregon, compared to a 34th ranking in rushing explosiveness now.
However, I can’t say that this offense is bad either. That’s a pretty big deal for the Kelly project at UCLA. After brutal slogs through the 2018 and 2019 seasons, it seems as though Kelly and OC Justin Frye have found something here, because the Bruins are putting up points and they’re doing it against good defenses. That’s new. That’s interesting.
It’s also a crucial development for the sake of Kelly’s job security and his hopes of building something sustainable at UCLA. It seemed that at some point he would need to do something to earn the trust that he was given when UCLA doled out five-year, $23.3 million contract to his three years ago. This program obviously isn’t where it was expected to be under Kelly quite yet, but for the first time in his tenure, these Bruins don’t look hapless. They don’t look as though they are lacking for an identity, specifically on the offensive side of the ball.
Interestingly enough, this identity has very little in common with those offenses that Kelly built at Oregon. Those teams relied on zone blocking to create space for an extremely well-built and meticulous option attack. There was power running and play action in there with the personnel allowed it, but everything in those offenses operated through big explosive runs to the sidelines. That’s not the case at UCLA. This offense is much closer to those that Frye helped put together when he was at Boston College, where he served as the offensive line coach and run game coordinator from 2012-17.
This group is much more centered around the power running of Demetric Felton and Brittain Brown, both of whom fall firmly into the power back camp, even though Felton is a former wide receiver that checks in at just 5-10, 200 pounds. UCLA leans into that. There’s little in the way of inside running here, but Felton has found consistent success on plays like this one, a fairly common looking sweep to the outside.
There’s still some Kelly magic here, with that wide receiver motion and quarterback keeper fake to the field, designed to hold that backside defensive end, cornerback and safety in place (which it does here), but most of this is very much Boston College under Frye. UCLA is loading up the line and winning those battles against a loaded box, while only looking to pick off a few players with misdirection. The goal here is not to blow a massive hole in the defense here with a hard fake or with fancy option misdirection, but rather to just get the yards needed behind a consistently solid halfback. I’ll harken back to personnel again, because I think this is probably what the Kelly rushing attacks at Oregon look like without players like De’Anthony Thomas, LaMichael James or Kenjon Barner. UCLA doesn’t have those kind of guys yet.
The passing attack is also distinctly un-Kelly-like. The run fake (and run blocking) draws the defensive box in, while UCLA slips quarterback Dorian-Thompson Robinson out of the pocket and towards his throwing side, creating an easier throw. Two routes to the flats draw the flat defender’s eyes and bring him in, while a tight end just moves into a soft spot of the zone for an easy completion. Again, this is much more Boston College than it is Kelly, who rarely schemed up open receivers like this, opting instead for quick-hit passes or vertical shots against defenses loading the box to stop the option.
Here’s a similar look, this time rolling Thompson-Robinson away from his strong side. The run fake is still there, the distraction route to the flat is still there and Thompson-Robinson has another easy throw to make as he completes his rollout.
Now, this isn’t to say that the Kelly influence is gone entirely. Those backfield misdirection looks are still very much a crucial part of this rushing attack functioning and the subtle trickery within this offense is obviously Kelly-influenced. There’s still a vertical passing attack too, though those passes are coming primarily off of play fakes now, with tight ends in the seams being the usual target.
There’s also the occasional option look like this one. This is prime Kelly. The wideout lines up alongside the quarterback on the back side, with the halfback set up behind for the inside read. The offensive line, with the play side receiver, is focused on eliminating the three non-read defensive linemen and the three linebackers in the box, creating a wide open lane if that defensive end allows the quarterback to hand off to the inside run.
He never will, though. There’s no third option here, because that inside read isn’t real. UCLA is loading up the back side of this play and sealing off the middle of the defense so that the quarterback can read that end for a pitch, not for a handoff. The handoff just has to keep those linebackers in place for the line and wideout to get to the second level. Once that fake is done, Thompson-Robinson is reading that end and pitching if he stays in (as he does here).
After that pitch, the wideout just has to follow the tight end, who kicked outside and is picking up the cornerback initially accounted for by that down-blocking wide receiver. With a lead blocker, Kyle Phillips has all sorts of room to work on the outside for a big gain.
Honestly, there’s a decent chance that if the power run game continues to work as well as it has, these looks will start to create big plays even more consistently than they have for UCLA. Defenses will be more focused on stopping Felton on power runs, and option plays to the perimeter will have more space to operate in. If he can find a consistent speed threat on the perimeter (I would just go with Phillips, personally), Kelly should, in theory, be able to bring back a lot of his stuff from the Oregon option game, just with a different identity creating those big plays. Kelly’s UCLA hasn’t fully clicked yet, but for those saying that he’s lost his touch or that this distinctly isn’t his offense anymore, I think that may be a misidentification. This is still a Kelly offense, it’s just a Kelly offense for a new era of football. This is a Kelly offense that’s still trying to figure out faster, smaller defenses.
I’m not sure if they’ll get there. The recruiting is very concerning and the defense is not going to make things easier on this offense any time soon. However, there’s something here. The big question that’s going to determine the success of this tenure: can Kelly tie everything together and create a coherent offensive identity in time to save his job?