All Bruins UCLA Football Players of the Game: Week 8 vs. Oregon

Awarding the Bruins' top offensive, defensive and special teams players in their loss to the Ducks on Saturday.

Even in defeat, a few Bruins impressed up in Eugene.

No. 12 UCLA football (6-1, 3-1 Pac-12) fell to No. 8 Oregon (6-1, 4-0 Pac-12) on Saturday, walking away with a 45-30 loss. Taking a look at each unit individually, here are the three student-athletes who have earned the All Bruins UCLA Football Players of the Game awards.

Offensive Player of the Game: RB Zach Charbonnet

For all the questions about gameplans and execution in enemy territory, Charbonnet is probably the one Bruin who played a perfect game Saturday.

Charbonnet did more than just avoid negative plays, truly living up to his status as a bona fide game breaker.

The former Michigan transfer had gains of 27 and 33 yards, and he had more carries of 15-plus than ones that went for 2 yards or fewer. Charbonnet finished the day with 151 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries, in addition to 28 receiving yards on four catches.

Charbonnet was difficult to drag down all day, as he shook off defenders basically from start to finish. He was the one player Oregon was virtually unable to stop, and he surged forward to the No. 2 spots for rushing yards and yards from scrimmage on the Pac-12 leaderboards as a result.

UCLA was 11-0 when Charbonnet rushed for 100-plus the past two seasons before Saturday, so his performance typically would have been enough to win them the game. Oregon stole more possessions and held the Bruins to field goals to win the game, but that shouldn't fall on Charbonnet's shoulders.

Defensive Player of the Game: DB Mo Osling III

The defense, as a whole, had its worst game of the season by far, and the secondary's poor performance played a major part in that.

Osling's day shouldn't go overlooked, though, because his 17 tackles were the most by a Bruin all year. He continued to be one of the best finishers and one of the hardest hitters on the team.

Whereas many of the Bruins' defensive backs played far off the line of scrimmage and missed tackles when they ran up to meet receivers, Osling did a lot of the cleanup work that prevented the Ducks from hanging even more points.

It is hard to really crown him as a difference maker when the defense allowed 45 points in a loss, but Osling is just one of the 11 guys out there. One link can be genuinely strong in an overall poor team performance, and Osling shouldn't automatically be lumped in with the rest just because the scoreboard looked the way it did.

Special Teams Player of the Game: K Nicholas Barr-Mira

If the Bruins were going to win this game, Barr-Mira needed to fewer opportunities than he ultimately received. In a shootout like Saturday's showdown, trading field goals for touchdowns was never going to lift UCLA to a win.

Still, Barr-Mira did everything that was asked of him, hitting all three of his field goals and all three of his extra points. He didn't need to pull double duty this week since the Bruins didn't punt all day, but he did more than enough in his signature role.

Again, the three field goals did not do close to enough to guide the Bruins to victory, and each try was paired with a twinge of disappointment since each one represented a drive in which UCLA failed to reach the end zone.

That shouldn't erase the fact that the Bruins have a legit kicker now.

There were moments last season, and even earlier in 2022, that Barr-Mira could have been benched if UCLA had some more experienced backups. From Week 4 in 2021 to Week 1 in 2022, Barr-Mira was 12-of-21 with two more misses on extra points.

Since then, Barr-Mira is 10-of-11 on field goals, and he hasn't missed a single one of his 32 extra point attempts this season.

Barr-Mira had makes from 47, 44 and 33 yards out Saturday, a couple of which were in the rain. That's genuinely impressive, and even if fans would have rather had those drives end in extra points, it is no small feat to have one of the most productive kickers in the Pac-12 moving forward.

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