UCLA Football: Ranking Bruins’ 2020 opponents by toughness

Chip Kelly is facing a critical 2020 season with UCLA football and here’s how the Bruins’ opponents rank in terms of toughness.

Through two seasons under Chip Kelly, UCLA is just 7-17 without a single bowl appearance and not much success in the Pac-12 to speak of.

The Bruins were thought to have hit a home run when Kelly was hired but he hasn’t lived up to the insane hype placed upon him when he arrived. He was a perennial 10-game winner at Oregon before leaving for the NFL and even made a national title game with the Ducks. He had plenty of Pac-12 success under his belt, so the hire made sense.

Fast forward to 2020 and we’re looking at a coach who may just be on the hot seat and who must get his team to a bowl game to avoid being unemployed. He has a decent team returning and anything less than six wins, even with a conference-only slate, would be a massive disappointment.

Dorian Thompson-Robinson is back under center but the offense loses Joshua Kelley. The junior quarterback is coming off his best season yet in which he passed for 2,701 yards and 21 touchdowns but he needs to work on his accuracy as well as decision-making.

Defensively, the Bruins were one of the worst teams in the country a year ago, ranking 11th in the Pac-12 and No. 113 in the country. That must change under Jerry Azzinaro in 2020.

Will the schedule be forgiving or will the Bruins struggle through the 2020 slate?

Note: These rankings are based on the notion that a season will move forward as planned with non-conference games. Right now, because of COVID-19, nothing’s a given.