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No. 24 UCLA Gets Pac-12 Play Underway with a Road Trip to Stanford for the Bruins

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Football

UCLA begins Pac-12 play on Saturday, Sept. 25 on the road at Stanford for a 3 p.m. game to be televised by the Pac-12 Network. The UCLA Learfield Radio Network will broadcast the contest, which will also be aired over SiriusXM and the Varsity App. This is the fifth straight season in which the Bruins have opened the conference schedule on the road. The Bruins are 5-5 in the last 10 conference openers.

UCLA owns a 46-43-3 advantage in the previous matchups, but the Cardinal have won 12 of the last 13 meetings. The series started in 1925, and has seen the teams battle each season since 1946. The Bruins halted an 11-game Stanford series streak with a 34-16 victory in its last trip to the Farm in 2019.

UCLA vs. Stanford — Last season in the Rose Bowl, UCLA rebounded from a 20-3 halftime deficit with 31 straight points to take a 34-20 fourth-quarter lead. Stanford rallied with two touchdowns in the last 2:34 of regulation play to force overtime. The Cardinal stopped a Bruin two-point conversion attempt in the second overtime period to emerge with the 48-47 win. Chase Griffin tossed four scoring passes after coming on for an injured Dorian Thompson-Robinson. In 2020, UCLA built a 21-10 lead at halftime and never looked back in taking a 34-16 verdict over Stanford on a Thursday night. It was the first Bruin win at Stanford since a 45-17 victory on Sept. 1, 2007 and the first series win overall by UCLA since 2008 when the it captured a 23-20 battle in the Rose Bowl. In that 2008 victory, Bruin quarterback Kevin Craft completed six straight passing attempts during an 11-play scoring drive which culminated on a 7-yard toss to tight end Cory Harkey with 10 seconds to play in the contest.

THE WATCHLIST
• UCLA is ranked No. 24 in both major polls this week ... this is the first time UCLA has been ranked in back-to-back weeks since the Nov. 7 and 14 polls in the 2015 season ... the last time UCLA won a game as a ranked team was in November of 2015 at Oregon State, when it bested the Beavers 41-0 as the No. 22-ranked team in the AP poll.
• UCLA has posted a 5-5 record in conference openers since the start of the Pac-12 in the 2011 season ... eight of those openers have come on the road during that span, including in each of the last four seasons ... the Bruins are 1-10 vs. Stanford since the 2011 season ...the lone win came in 2019 at Stanford ... the last time UCLA posted back-to-back wins in games played at Stanford was in the 2005 and 2007 seasons.
• The Bruins won their last Pac-12 Conference road game, a Dec. 5, 2020 contest at Arizona State 25-18 ... UCLA will be looking to post its first winning record in Pac-12 play since it went 5-4 in the 2015 campaign.
• The last time UCLA earned a win in its first road game of a season was on Sept. 12, 2015, in a victory at UNLV.
• Mitchell Agude has been credited with four forced fumbles in the first three games of 2021 and leads the NCAA with a 1.33 average per game. Linebackers Robert Thomas (2000) and Donnie Edwards (1993) share the UCLA record (dating back to 1975) with six forced fumbles in a season. Elvis Dumervil of Louisville holds the NCAA record (kept since 2000 by NCAA) for a season with 10 in 12 games during the 2005 season. The NCAA record for most in a game is four. Edwards holds the UCLA career mark, at 12, with records dating back to 1990. In 2020, Agude was credited with the forced fumble which was returned for a TD at Oregon and two forced fumbles vs. Arizona ... he rated 10th nationally (0.43/game) last season.
•The Bruins lead the Pac-12 in scoring and are flirting with the 40-points-per-game mark with an average of 39.7 through three games ... the Bruins have averaged 40+ per game just twice (dating to 1945) -- in 1973 (42.7) and 1954 (40.8) ... UCLA averaged 39+ points in the 2005, 1998 and 1997 seasons.
• Kyle Philips (113 yds vs. Fresno State) and Kam Brown (111) were the first Bruin receiving duo to record 100-yard games in the same contest since Philips and Devin Asiasi did so in a 2019 contest against USC. Brown also recorded his first-career college touchdown on a 39-yard pass against Fresno State.
• Dorian Thompson-Robinson leads the NCAA with a 20.24 yard average on each completion ... he is third in the nation with an average of 11.13 yards per pass attempt ... he leads the Pac-12 with seven passing TDs ... DTR ranks sixth in the NCAA in passing efficiency at 183.7 ... UCLA has had only two starting QBs register at least a 160.0 pass efficiency mark for a season -- Drew Olson in 2005 (161.6) and Cade McNown in 1997 (168.6) ... versus Stanford, DTR is 29-46 passing (.630) for 257 yards with two TDs and one interception. ... he has rushed 22 times for 112 yards and a TD ... he recorded his fifth-career 300-yard total offense performance, with 345 yards, against Fresno State.
• On the ground, UCLA has out-rushed its opponent in nine consecutive games ... it has racked up a 571-to-189 rushing yards edge on opponents in 2021 ... the Bruins average 4.8 yards per rush while opponents are at 2.3 ... per game, UCLA is at 190.3; opponents at 63.0.
• UCLA is +17 turnovers in wins and -26 in losses under Coach Kelly... in 2021, UCLA is +3 in turnovers for the season ... in its four 2020 losses, UCLA committed 12 of its 13 turnovers on the season ... it turned the ball over four times at Colorado, four times at Oregon, three times vs. USC and once vs. Stanford.