Matchup Breakdown: UCLA Bruins vs Colorado Buffaloes

With the help of our new partners at Pro Football Focus, we provide an in-depth look at how the Bruns and Buffaloes will match up on each side of the ball.

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I've been writing these stories for a few weeks now using the Pro Football Focus Analytics, and the grades can often be misunderstood. Two quick things to keep in mind and you'll be fine: 1. The analytics/grades don't tell the whole story but tell a story and 2. PFF is as legit as they come, but it's not a perfect system.

You can see the charts below with each individual grade for various categories, and UCLA's offense grades for this season through three games are pretty poor. A passing grade of 56.5 is considered below average, and Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who has been the Bruins' main quarterback, has an overall grade of 61.6 this season, which is on the low end of "average." UCLA ranks dead last in yards per game in the Pac-12 at 319.7 and last in the conference in points per game at 17.3. UCLA has good athletes all over the field but can't get anything going even under Chip Kelly. It does seem like just a matter of time until they start putting things together. For CU's sake, you just hope it's not this Friday.

Defensively, Colorado grades surprisingly well. Colorado's overall defensive grade of 90.1 is very high, ranking fifth in the conference. As I mentioned, the analytics can tell a different story than what you just see from a stat sheet. It takes into consideration things such as strong play from the offense that's simply good football which doesn't dock the defense's grade as much. So while Colorado ranks 8th in the Pac-12 giving up 158 rushing yards per game, the Buffs have the conference's third best rush defense grade at 92.0. It's certainly interesting but I don't agree with the grade there, but we'll see this Friday.

I was shocked to see such an average passing grade for Colorado. I don't know exactly how PFF computes the season grades, let alone the individual player grades, but the play of Sam Noyer has significantly impacted CU's passing grade. In 182 snaps this season, Steven Montez has a solid overall offensive grade of 75.2 on 182 snaps, while Sam Noyer has an abysmal grade of 22.0 on 41 snaps. Colorado does rank No. 9 in the Pac-12 in passing yards, but most of the teams in the conference have played four games, and Montez has only completed one full game this season as the CSU and UNH games were blowouts.

Moving along, the rest of the grades look about right, with run blocking being CU's lowest offensive grade. Colorado has had to rely on chunk plays in the rushing game to be successful, but they do average 204 yards on the ground, good for 3rd in the conference.

On the UCLA side, the Bruins grade very well despite giving up 26, 49, and 38 points in three games this season. I don't cover UCLA for a living so I can't speak to those grades, which don't make a whole lot of sense. The Bruins give up 403 yards per game and seem to struggle in both stopping the run and pass.

Both teams are coming off a bye week in preparation for this week five matchup. It should be a rather high scoring matchup in Boulder.