PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — UCLA’s Dorian Thompson-Robinson was hoping to celebrate his 21st birthday with a big game against Utah. That game was canceled but he got a belated birthday present on Sunday morning.
The junior threw three touchdown passes, rushed for another TD and accounted for 248 yards of total offense as the Bruins rolled to a 34-10 victory over California at the Rose Bowl.
“It feels great to get a win. We’ve been fighting for it for a long time,” said Thompson-Robinson, who completed 14 of 26 passes for 196 yards and added 52 yards rushing. “The biggest thing is we kind of treated it like backyard football — wake up in the morning, go out and play ball.”
The Bruins and Golden Bears weren’t originally slated to face each other this season, but the conference scheduled the contest on Friday after Cal’s game against Arizona State and UCLA’s matchup against Utah were canceled due to the Sun Devils and Utes having several positive COVID-19 tests.
The Sunday morning time slot was available because the Cal-Arizona State game was pushed back from Saturday before it was called off. Cal was playing its season opener after its Nov. 7 game against Washington was canceled following one positive COVID-19 test and subsequent contact tracing.
“The one thing (Cal coach) Justin (Wilcox) felt the same way about is we both had the same amount of time to prepare,” Kelly said.
Thompson-Robinson’s 2-yard run around right end on fourth-and-goal with 58 seconds remaining in the first quarter gave the Bruins a 7-3 advantage. The junior’s three TD passes in the second quarter went to Charles Njoku, Chase Cota and Kyle Phillips.
