The San Jose State Spartans look to rebound from a 57-3 shellacking at the hands of the Stanford Cardinal as they head south to face the UCLA Bruins in Pasadena. San Jose State may catch a break as UCLA quarterback Kevin Prince is questionable for Saturday's game due to a concussion he suffered last weekend against the Houston Cougars. The UCLA offense was still fairly solid as backup Richard Brehaut was solid in place of Prince.
The Spartans will need every break they can get as they could not get anything going against the Cardinal. The defense kept things relatively close early against Stanford, but the offense struggled to do much with that. Matt Faulkner had a little bit of success through the air, but the rushing attack had a combined 27 yards on 37 rushes. The bigger problem came on turnovers as the Spartans fumbled the ball numerous times, officially losing three, but giving up a safety on a fourth. The Cardinal put together 23 points on those fumbles and the Spartans simply did not have the firepower to recover.
The Spartans now turn around and face a Bruins team with a little bit of retribution on the mind. The UCLA offense put together a solid performance against Houston, putting together 554 yards of total offense. However, the Bruins defense was ravaged by the up tempo Houston offense to the tune of 469 total yards. San Jose State has some solid weapons offense, but it will be tough to match what Houston did to the Bruins defense. The Spartans will be looking to continue getting wide receiver Noel Grigsby involved, but will need to establish some sort of rushing game against the Bruins if they want to make this game remotely competitive.
This marks San Jose State's first ever matchup with the Bruins. With this game, San Jose State will have played every member of the new Pac-12 at least once. The Spartans have lost six straight to the conference with their last win coming at home against Stanford.