UCLA was 34 seconds away from a Sun Bowl victory and a 10th win on the year — what would have been just the 10th double-digit-win campaign in program history.

Instead, it was stunned by Pittsburgh on a 47-yard field goal that split the uprights with only four seconds on the clock, giving Pitt a 37-35 win and sending UCLA into the offseason wondering what might have been.

The Bruins opened the year 6-0 and surged into the AP Top 10. They closed things out with losses in three of their final four games to finish 9-4.

Here are three takeaways from the game.

Defense does it again

UCLA was quite literally a tackle away from beating Pitt.

Ethan Garbers replaced Dorian Thompson-Robinson early in the fourth quarter after an injury forced the Bruin star off the field. Garbers’ first two drives featured a three-and-out and a turnover on downs.

But he got the ball back with 2:01 to play and had a chance to drive for a game-winner.

(The sequence of events that led us to that possibility were truly wild. Chip Kelly elected to go for a fourth-and-9 on the UCLA 27 with all his timeouts in a six-point game. Pitt got a stop, then turned it back over to UCLA on downs instead of trying for a field goal to go up by nine.)

With what looked like it would be one last opportunity, Garbers led an eight-play, 70-yard touchdown march to take a 35-34 lead. He had completions of 12 and 14 on the drive. Tailback TJ Harden paid it off with an 8-yard score.

UCLA needed one more stop.

Pitt quarterback Nick Patti got 18 yards on the first play and 17 on the second.

With 20 seconds on the clock and Pitt sitting just outside field goal range, Patti scrambled for a first down. UCLA had him dead to rights a good 7 yards shy of the sticks, but two Bruins whiffed on tackles. Patti bounced off poor attempts to bring him down, kept his balance, and reached the line to gain to stop the clock.

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Pitt had no timeouts. Had the Bruins stopped Patti short of the first down marker, they might have been able to bleed the entire clock out. Or, at the very least, force a fire drill from Pitt to try and get the field goal unit on the field and get the ball snapped.

UCLA’s defense certainly doesn’t deserve the entirety of the blame for the loss. (The Bruins had a pick-six after all!) Special teams had numerous problems and the offense turned the ball over four times.

But missing that tackle in that situation is going to be hard to swallow. And defense has consistently been the Achilles heel of this program under Kelly. It was against Oregon this season. It was against USC. And it was Friday. In the biggest moments, even the program’s best season so far during this era gets derailed by an inability to stop the other side. You wonder how Kelly plans to fix that going forward.

A disappointing end to the DTR era

Dorian Thompson-Robinson deserved a better ending.

The Bruins’ fifth-year senior quarterback — and fifth-year starter, a feat that’ll be pretty tough to match — didn’t need to play in UCLA’s bowl game. It wasn’t a Playoff game. It wasn’t a New Year’s Six bowl. Given the start to the season, he would have been forgiven for thinking playing Pitt in the Sun Bowl was a disappointment.

But there was Thompson-Robinson leading the Bruins. The fiery competitor everyone has come to know was on full display. He banged helmets with a Pitt defender early, emotions carried over from a pregame scuffle between the two teams.

This has been DTR. He’ll tell you what he’s feeling. He’s not afraid to flirt with the line. You have to appreciate that. He got popped along the sideline later in the game, got right back up, and congratulated the freshman Pitt defender who’d just put a licking on him. It was a moment that showcased what makes him so special — the ultimate competitor.

You just wish he could have enjoyed a better ending.

He threw three interceptions and then left the game early in the fourth quarter with what appeared to be a back issue that just progressively got worse and worse. As the fourth wore on, Thompson-Robinson eventually left the sideline, getting assistance as he walked away.

DTR ended the day 15-for-23 for 262 yards and two scores. He added another touchdown on the ground. But he had those three turnovers. The first two came in the red zone. The third was on the first play of a drive that followed back-to-back three-and-outs.

Friday marked his 49th career appearance. Heading into the Bruins’ Nov. 19 meeting with USC, DTR had never thrown three interceptions in a game. He did it twice in his final three games.

He’ll go down as one of the most accomplished quarterbacks in program history, but we’ll always wonder if there could have been more.

A look at the future?

Star running back Zach Charbonnet did not play Friday against Pitt. That opened the door for TJ Harden to step in and get his first extended action of the season.

A true freshman, Harden had appeared in five games entering the day. He had just 21 carries, though. Against the Panthers, Harden got 11 touches and made the most of them, rushing for 111 yards and a score. Keegan Jones was much less effective with his touches, running for 20 yards on seven carries.

Harden flashed a bit, and will give the Bruins’ coaching staff plenty to think about heading into next season.