Game Analysis

Stanford (-3)  26   UCLA  19

Stanford looks like Stanford so far, as the Cardinal have won their games in methodical fashion, 26-13 over Kansas State and 27-10 over USC. Christian McCaffrey hasn’t even really exploded yet (5.6 ypr and 5 catches per game at 10.6 ypc), so the Cardinal should get better offensively as long as new quarterback Ryan Burns continues to be as efficient as he’s been. Burns has completed 69% of his passes against two good defensive teams with just 1 interception thrown and the Cardinal defense has been solid – although they yet to be dominant (5.2 yards per play allowed). That could change with top DL Harrison Phillips expected to return this week and the Stanford defense, even without Phillips has been better than the UCLA offense.

Bruins’ quarterback Josh Rosen is no better than he was last season, as he was 0.7 yards per pass play better than average in 2015 (7.0 yppp against teams that would allow 6.3 yppp to an average team) and he’s been just 0.6 yppp better than average so far this season (6.6 yppp allowed to teams that would allow 6.0 yppp). The problem with UCLA’s attack is that they’ve been unable to replace the production of star RB Paul Perkins, who ran for 1343 yards at 5.7 ypr last season. Soso Jamabo was expected to fill those shoes after a good freshman season as a backup (6.1 ypr) but his production was pretty mediocre the first two weeks (5.3 ypr) and he didn’t play in last week’s game against BYU due to disciplinary reasons. It’s uncertainly if Jamabo will play this week. In 3 games the Bruins have averaged only 4.3 yards per rushing play and not being able to establish a rushing attack usually leads to trouble against Stanford’s defense, which is very tough to beat on 3^rd down.

My math favors Stanford by 3 points, so the line is fair, but the Cardinal apply to a 216-127-5 ATS situation based on their strong defense and I’ll look for them to extend their 8 game win streak over UCLA (7-1 ATS in those games).