UCLA Football to Host Rising Sun Belt Challenger South Alabama

The Sun Belt pulled off some major upsets over Texas A&M, Nebraska and Notre Dame in Week 2, and the Bruins will try to avoid joining that list Saturday.

The Bruins spent the past two Saturdays cruising to big wins over one of the lowest-ranked teams in the FBS and an FCS opponent, but they won't have that luxury in Week 3.

UCLA football (2-0) will play host to South Alabama (2-0) at the Rose Bowl on Saturday. The visiting Sun Belt squad is ranked No. 82 in ESPN's FPI rankings, compared to Bowling Green's bottom-six position and Alabama State's inability to even qualify.

The Jaguars also hail from a conference on a roll, with Week 2 standing out as one of its best single showings in years. Appalachian State beat No. 6 Texas A&M, Marshall beat No. 8 Notre Dame and Georgia Southern beat Nebraska all in one day, all on the road.

South Alabama, meanwhile, was busy racking up points against Central Michigan – a MAC squad that far outranks its conference foe Bowling Green in the FPI – on the road, improving to 2-0 with the 38-24 victory.

"That whole conference has been doing their thing this past week, so we know the challenge at hand," said quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson. "They’re a really good team, have a really good defense, a really good scheme on that side of the ball, so we have our (work) cut out for us."

While Thompson-Robinson has managed to put up a 152.6 passer rating through two weeks of success, his counterpart actually has him beat in that category.

Carter Bradley, a transfer from Toledo, has thrown for 597 yards, six touchdowns, one interception and a 165.6 passer rating thus far in 2022. His favorite targets, Caullin Lacy and Jalen Wayne, have combined for 12 catches and 183 yards per game while lining up outside the numbers.

Coach Chip Kelly didn't want to overlook running back La'Damian Webb, though, who has racked up 239 yards and four touchdowns from scrimmage in two appearances this fall and is a threat to put up big numbers once more against the Bruins. 

"They kinda spread you out to run it a little bit, and if you get too spread out, they're gonna hurt you in the run game," Kelly said. "But if you constrict too much in the run game, they're gonna hurt you cause they've got weapons out wide."

UCLA limited its last two opponents to 236 yards per game, potentially setting up the defense to take major strides post-Jerry Azzinaro. However, South Alabama is averaging over 500 total yards per game on offense, putting them in position to show the Bruins something they haven't seen all year long.

So while UCLA is still a 16-point favorite heading into its nonconference finale, Notre Dame's 20.5-point spread didn't do much for them against Marshall a week ago. Neither did Texas A&M's projected 17-point advantage.

The Bruins opened 0-6 in nonconference play under Kelly, after all, and they may need to string together their best performance yet if they're going to improve to 5-1 in such contests since.

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