Before we get started, if you didn’t watch the UCLA-Washington State football game last Saturday night, I suggest you watch the 60-minute replay on Pac-12 Network, you won’t regret it.
With just under 22 minutes remaining in the game, UCLA trailed 49-17. Over the next 21 minutes, UCLA scored 50 points and won the game 67-63 in regulation, overcoming the third-largest deficit in college football history (side note, UCLA already held the record for the second-largest comeback -34 points- of all time).
UCLA came into this game with an 0-3 record and was coming off a 34-point loss to Oklahoma along with many complaints that second-year coach Chip Kelly needed to be fired. Washington State had just won its third straight game and moved up to 19th in the college football rankings. It would be an understatement to say that UCLA and Coach Kelly needed a win at Pullman that night.
Sorry for the long introduction, but I will be using this game, and more specifically, a decision that was made in this game, as a vehicle for this blog post and I felt some background was in order.
The play I’m referring to came with 2 minutes and 27 seconds left in the game. UCLA trailed by 3 points on fourth down with 5 yards to go on the ball at WSU’s 17-yard line. They had the option of kicking a relatively short field goal (34 yards) to tie the game, or risk giving the ball back to WSU if they failed to gain at least five yards and win a first down.
Most coaches I’ve been associated with would have kicked the field goal, but I knew Chip would go for it without hesitation. If all you care about is giving yourself a chance to win that game, kicking the field goal would be a good option. However, Chip has a bigger goal, to build a winning program and you do it by doing what you say and believing in your players.
I knew very well that he would receive even more vitriol the next day if they didn’t win a first down and lose the game, but at that point I told my wife, ‘It’s the right decision.’ Win or lose in changing a culture, showing you believe in your players means more than winning any game.
Unfortunately, they threw an incomplete pass and didn’t get the first down. Although there is no way of knowing what would have happened if Kelly had opted to go for the field goal and made it, experience tells me WSU would have won the game. Everyone thinks about strategy and what coaches have on the menu cards that tell them what to do, but they miss the mental side of those decisions, which can’t always be explained by the analytics team.
That’s how I see it, and why I say I think WSU would have won. Had Kelly chosen to attempt the field goal, he would have sent the wrong message to his team and to the WSU team.
He would have pointed out to his team, we are playing not to lose instead of playing to win. This would have exhausted their own players’ internal drive to win and ruined their performance going forward. At the same time, WSU would have been able to relax and catch their ‘mental breath’, as it would have communicated weakness on the UCLA side.
Instead, his decision indicated belief and confidence in his players (something a winless team needs more than anything at the moment) and energized them. Meanwhile, WSU got tougher and I think the combination of the fears of the WSU players and the added desire of the UCLA players is what allowed UCLA to cause the fumble that led to them winning this game.
People like to jump to conclusions and many are now calling it the turning point for UCLA. These are probably some of the same people who asked for Chip’s head a week ago. Turning points are usually only seen accurately when he is facing backwards instead of forwards.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few weeks for this UCLA team. All I can say is that this is an important cornerstone in building the culture that Chip is trying to instill with his young team. They could be gone this weekend, as progress rarely comes in a straight line. But regardless of what happens, they now have a new foundation to continue building on.
One final note… I heard from several UCLA fans the next day that they were relieved the Bruins won the game, but couldn’t get over how stupid Chip was for not kicking the field goal when he had a chance to tie it. All I could tell them was “stupid is what stupid does.”
You can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc
