Column: Bruins’ Josh Rosen gets approval of his harshest critic: himself
His personality was starting to overshadow his play. His team was on the brink of a crisis.
Josh Rosen had to deliver Saturday night.
And the sophomore quarterback did, leading UCLA to a 45-24 victory over Arizona at the Rose Bowl with a breathtaking performance that silenced even his loudest critic.
Himself.
“That was probably my best half to date this season,” Rosen said of the game’s final 30 minutes.
This was the version of Rosen who was conspicuously absent from UCLA’s previous four games. This was the version of Rosen who was a Heisman hopeful, a potential future No. 1 draft choice.
He threw for a season-high 350 yards. He passed for three touchdowns and ran for another. The Bruins improved to 3-2, including 1-1 in the Pacific 12.
“I’ve been thinking a lot,” Rosen said. “Sometimes, I just have to say, ‘Screw it,’ and play. I think that this second half, for the first time, I really got back to my old form and I felt really good about how I played.”
Rosen completed 11 of 13 second-half passes for 182 yards and two touchdowns.
The numbers told the story, but only part of the story. What he did wasn’t as important as how he did it.
The game marked a significant evolutionary step for the 19-year-old, who spent the first part of the season acclimating himself to the Bruins’ newly installed pro-style offense. The uncertainty he displayed in previous games vanished. When he had to improvise, he did.
He broke a 7-7 stalemate on the final play of the opening quarter with a display of athleticism and awareness, scrambling out of a collapsing pocket before connecting with Kenneth Walker III for a 62-yard touchdown.
Rosen made an even more spectacular play midway through the fourth quarter. With the gloved hand of a defender wrapped around his left ankle and the helmet of an opponent about to crash into his midsection, he linked up with Walker again, this time for a 29-yard touchdown strike. The play and ensuring point-after increased UCLA’s advantage to 38-17.
The performance looked as if it came out of nowhere, but Coach Jim Mora swore that wasn’t the case.
“What I’ve seen out of Josh in the last three weeks behind the scenes lends itself to the type of performance that you’re recognizing tonight,” Mora said. “I see a young man that has really stepped up his game, in terms of studying, taking notes, applying what he’s learning in practice on a daily basis.”
Rosen said this wasn’t as much about working harder as it was about being smarter, speaking at length about the influence of Marques Tuiasosopo, UCLA’s first-year quarterbacks coach.
“I’m learning how to break down film more efficiently, what to look for,” Rosen said. “A lot of times you’ll catch yourself just watching football. You won’t actually be watching film.
“If you’re just watching games and … you don’t know what to look for, it’s kind of useless.”
Mora also offered a glowing appraisal of Tuiasosopo, describing him as the perfect mentor for his star player. The most valuable player of the Rose Bowl while at Washington, Tuiasosopo played eight seasons in NFL.
“He was not a wildly talented player,” Mora said. “He got by on grit and study and toughness and preparation. Josh, on the other hand, is this wildly talented guy that always got by on talent. When you combine these two and they start to accept each other, then you see something really special because you can take Tui’s grit and his preparation and his film study and his toughness and his will to win, and you put it with Josh’s talent, and all of a sudden you’ve got a pretty special football player.”
Mora was particularly pleased with the maturity Rosen displayed.
“I thought Josh held it together when he could have gotten very, very frustrated, and did a nice job in the second half,” Mora said.
Rosen made several perfectly delivered throws that were dropped by receivers, but he never complained. He completed only two of 14 passes in a scoreless second quarter, but he never looked discouraged.
“Mistakes were made, but I feel like I moved on from them pretty well and went to the next play and I feel really good about that,” Rosen said.
Perhaps Mora had something to do with that. The coach said he “challenged” the offense at halftime – or, in receiver Kenneth Walker III’s words, “We got chewed out.”
Rosen, who entered the game with four interceptions and only five touchdowns, finished the night without a single turnover and plenty of optimism.
“You just hope to not get too hopeful about the future too late in the season because at some point, it has to start happening now,” he said. “There’s not much time left. The new offense isn’t an excuse because it’s not new any more. There’s no chemistry issue. It’s got to start happening now.”
It already has.
dylan.hernandez@latimes.com
Twitter: @dylanohernandez
Go beyond the scoreboard
Get the latest on L.A.'s teams in the daily Sports Report newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
