UCLA vs. South Alabama Week 3: Postgame Takeaways

Breaking down the most notable storylines that came out of the Bruins' win over the Jaguars on Saturday.

The Bruins escaped with a win over the Jaguars, but there is far more to break down than just the end result in the win-loss column.

UCLA football (3-0) beat South Alabama (2-1) 32-31 at the Rose Bowl on Saturday. The Jaguars were just seconds away from becoming the latest Sun Belt team to pull off a big road upset, but the Bruins came through with a game-winning field goal to silence their attempt.

These are three of the biggest takeaways, narratives and questions to come out of Saturday's game.

Far too close for comfort

Some UCLA fans out there will tell you that a win is a win.

Technically speaking, they are right. But when you're trying to extrapolate results to the rest of the season, it's hard to come out of Saturday's game feeling great about the Bruins' overall direction in 2022.

UCLA looked off at times in its first two games of the year, but was playing opponents so wildly inferior that it didn't come back to bite them. The shortcomings were even more prevalent and consistent against South Alabama, a team that was far more up to the task of upsetting the Bruins than Bowling Green or Alabama State.

If UCLA is going to get bullied in the trenches by a Sun Belt team, how can they be expected to win the ground battle against Oregon or Washington? If Carter Bradley can have his way with the Bruins' secondary, just imagine what Michael Penix Jr., Cameron Rising and Caleb Williams can do to them.

UCLA dropped from No. 45 to No. 46 in ESPN's FPI rankings despite the win. After beating Alabama State the week before, they dropped from No. 35 to No. 45. The Bruins' wins are not convincing enough, nor are they coming against good enough opposition, to pass the eye test or the analytics test.

There is time to adjust, and there is room for improvement. UCLA isn't in a wildly different position than they were at the beginning of the year, when many believed it was nine wins or bust. But to end up achieving or exceeding that mark, the Bruins will have to really flip a switch in the coming weeks.

Offensive line play, pass rush and the overall performance in the secondary need to improve drastically if UCLA is going to finish 2022 better than it finished 2021.

Barr-Mira has officially gotten back on track

Ever since his near-perfect redshirt freshman season, Barr-Mira has looked spotty as the Bruins' kicker.

Barr-Mira, after going 6-of-7 on field goals and 30-of-31 on extra point in 2020, went just 14-of-21 on field goals and 52-of-55 on extra points in 2021. In UCLA's first eight conference games last fall, Barr-Mira missed seven field goals and two extra points.

Week 1 against Bowling Green, Barr-Mira went 1-for-3 on field goals, returning to that slump that hampered most of his previous campaign.

But Saturday, he came through in the clutch, and saved UCLA's skin when its offense wasn't able to finish drives.

Barr-Mira drilled all four of his attempts, one of which came from 49 yards out. The rest were essentially chip shots, but they were all incredibly important in a game that ended up being decided by one point.

The Bruins' offense kept stalling out on the doorstep of the Jaguars' red zone, and the version of Barr-Mira that took the field for most of last year and early this fall would not have been able to give the team what they needed to win the game. Instead, he came through all day long, capping it off with a clutch game-winner with time expiring.

His prior inconsistencies make it tough to believe he will be an All-Pac-12-level kicker from here on out, but it appears as if Barr-Mira's case of the yips is behind him.

The receiver room has finally found its stride

Losing Kyle Philips and Greg Dulcich was always going to be hard for the Bruins to overcome this year, and there were certainly growing pains through the first two weeks.

Kazmeir Allen racked up the targets and touches Week 1 against Bowling Green, but Josiah Norwood was the only other receiver to break three catches, and most of his five came in garbage time. In Week 2, Allen again led all receivers with four catches.

That changed Saturday against the Jaguars, when the wave of transfer wideouts and reserves waiting in the wings finally appeared to break out.

Duke transfer Jake Bobo, who led the Blue Devils in receptions and receiving yards in 2021, hauled in five passes for 89 yards and a touchdown. He came through on third down time and time again, beating defensive backs on crossing routes, in the seam and in the red zone.

UCF transfer Titus Mokiao-Atimalala caught three passes for 47 yards. Two of those catches came inside two minutes with UCLA down two, needing to drive the length of the field to win the game. Mokiao-Atimalala's back-to-back grabs that went for 29 and 9 yards each put the Bruins in position to take the lead, and they were the last-minute sparks that led to the blue and gold coming out on top.

Kam Brown is in his second season with UCLA after transferring from Texas A&M, but his stats last year were relatively pedestrian and he missed the first two games of 2022 due to injury. While Brown only caught two passes for 19 yards, he also drew a key pass interference call that set up an 11-yard touchdown that went his way in the second half.

Logan Loya was poised to be a Philips replacement of sorts – if not in terms of production, then at least in terms of play style and role in the offense. Loya entered the season with three career catches for 27 yards and no touchdowns, and he racked up three grabs for 37 yards and a score on Saturday alone.

Quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson seems to have developed a solid chemistry with each of these weapons, and with Pac-12 play on the horizon, he should be able to distribute the ball more creatively against superior defenses moving forward.

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