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UCLA Finds Its Fourth-Quarter Gear, Needs 10 Seconds to End It
A weekly, unique recap show for each college football team that played a game. This unique look at what occured has a forward-looking approach and gets you what you need to know. For hardcore fans, casual onlookers and the gambler looking for an edge. Check out the Depth Dossier!
This is the Depth Dossier: the UCLA Bruins, Week 10.
UCLA found its finishing gear in a hurry, and it only needed two throws to do it.
A 34 to 20 win over Minnesota looked shaky for a while, but quarterback Ty Dieffenbach turned it into a laugher with two touchdown passes just ten seconds apart on the game clock.
Let's set the scene. Minnesota tied it at 17 with under thirteen minutes left and looked like it had wrestled control away from an unbeaten team. Then Dieffenbach found wide receiver Aidan Mizell for a 75-yard touchdown on the very next snap. Minnesota answered with a field goal. And Dieffenbach hit Mizell again for another 75-yard score to make it 34 to 20. Two plays, two touchdowns, game pretty much over right there.
Dieffenbach finished with a career-high 303 yards and three touchdowns, running back Wayne Knight added 109 yards on the ground, and UCLA survived a sloppier day than you'd expect, including an interception, a lost fumble, and a failed fourth down try, to improve to 9 and 0.
Now here's what makes that stat line almost unbelievable. Dieffenbach threw for those 303 yards on just eight completions. That's nearly 38 yards every time he completed a pass, and it's reportedly the first time any major college quarterback has thrown for 300-plus yards on eight or fewer completions since at least 1995. This wasn't a steady drive-by-drive passing game. It was two haymakers, both to Mizell, both for 75 yards, doing the work of an entire offense.
UCLA out-gained Minnesota 466 yards to 296 while running eleven fewer plays and even losing the time of possession battle. The simplest way to put it? UCLA averaged 8 and a half yards every time it snapped the ball. Minnesota averaged 4 and a half.
Minnesota helped open the door, too. Their kicker came in with a nationally best streak of 26 straight field goals made, and he missed two 56-yard attempts, one in each half. UCLA cashed in both times, turning those misses into touchdown drives. The Gophers also drew some second-guessing for going for it on fourth and two instead of punting before that first miss.
UCLA made it interesting with its own mistakes. A blocked punt gave the offense the ball at Minnesota's 20-yard line, and the Bruins still found a way to mess it up, with a holding penalty wiping out a touchdown and a fumble on the very next snap. An interception late in the first half gifted Minnesota a tying field goal. None of that ended up mattering, with the defense coming up with eight pass breakups and stopping Minnesota on 15 of 19 third downs.
Now let's get into who's up and who's down on the depth chart.
No new injuries came out of this game, which is notable after last week's uncertainty around wide receiver Brian Rowe Junior. His status still hasn't been clarified, but Mizell's huge day suggests UCLA has an answer at receiver regardless of who's available.
Mizell is the real story. His 150 yards and two 75-yard touchdowns made him UCLA's first 100-yard receiver of the season, and the first player to go for 150 yards receiving since 2020. That's not a complementary piece anymore. That's a receiver who can single-handedly flip a game, and he should start seeing a lot more targets going forward.
Knight's workload keeps climbing as well. That 109-yard day was his fifth 100-yard game of the season, and he's now scored a non-passing touchdown in nine straight games. He's clearly the early-down and third-down answer in that backfield. Tight end Noah Fox-Flores also caught his first touchdown of the year, a sign UCLA has more than one big-play threat if teams start keying on Mizell.
On defense, linebacker Jalen Woods tied his career high with 11 tackles, and defensive back Scooter Jackson picked up his third interception of the season. Those are the names to watch as UCLA heads into the rest of its stretch run, a defense that's now done its job in three straight wins without needing a clean game from the offense.
This was the depth dossier. For everything college football, be it depth charts, data or dossiers, head over to C F B Depth dot com. We will be back next week. This was an AI-generated podcast from content developed by real human beings passionate about college football.