Friday, October 18, 1996
FOOTBALL:
UCLA hopes rushing strength can bring an important winBy Rob
Kariakin
Daily Bruin Contributor
One week after its tough loss to No. 4 Arizona State, the UCLA
football team travels to Seattle this weekend to take on
25th-ranked Washington.
The unranked Bruins (2-3, 1-1 Pacific 10) hope to avenge
lop-sided losses to the Huskies from the past two years.
Washington routed the Bruins 38-14 last season at the Rose Bowl
after embarrassing them 37-14 the year before in Seattle. The
Huskies have won 16 of 27 games in Seattle, but UCLA leads the
overall series 27-26, with two ties.
UCLA quarterback Cade McNown had a horrible game against the
Huskies last year. Without running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar, who
injured his ankle on the first play from scrimmage, the Washington
defense was free to focus on the passing game and hold the freshman
to 61 yards on seven for 19 passing. Moreover, they intercepted
three of his passes before he was finally pulled in the second
half.
"You’ve got to support your freshman quarterback," then-UCLA
head coach Terry Donahue said afterwards. "I didn’t feel that any
of our quarterbacks (they played three) could plant their feet or
get any protection."
That quote is strangely appropriate following last weekend’s
game against ASU, in which McNown passed for a personal best 395
yards and three touchdowns despite being sacked four times and
knocked down many more. The Bruins lost 42-34 as the Sun Devils
scored three touchdowns in the final 7:30.
The Huskies (3-2, 2-1) are coming off a tough loss of their own.
After trailing Notre Dame by only 12 points at the half, Washington
could only watch as the Irish compiled 650 yards of total offense
and won going away, 54-20. Husky quarterback Brock Huard, a
redshirt freshman, completed only eight of 26 passes for 99 yards
before being knocked out of the game with a concussion in the third
quarter.
"It was fun to come out and bury them in the second half," Notre
Dame quarterback Ron Powlus said. "It’s fun to beat up on a
team."
The team which suffers the beating this weekend will, in all
likelihood, find itself out of the Rose Bowl race with two
conference losses. The Bruins enter the game tied with Stanford for
sixth in the Pac-10. The Huskies are tied with USC and Washington
State for third.
UCLA figures to go after the Huskies on the ground. The Bruins
boast the conference’s top rusher and leading scorer in junior
tailback Skip Hicks, and they rank third as a team in rushing
offense at 187.2 yards per game. Washington, meanwhile, has the
fourth-worst rushing defense, giving up an average of 156.8
yards.
Husky tailback Corey Dillon, a junior college transfer, has been
nearly as successful as Hicks this season, with 100.6 yards per
game (to Hicks’ 101.2). However, the Bruin run-defense has
surrendered 40 yards less per game than its UW counterpart and
ranks third in the conference on the ground.
The quarterback match-up figures to be interesting as well,
despite the fact that Huard and McNown rank ninth and 10th
respectively in the Pac-10 in passing efficiency.
Two years ago, the pair of left-handed All-Americans were each
deciding between attending Washington or UCLA, with the first to
decide relegating the other to the leftover school. Huard signed
first and spent his inaugural season redshirting behind his older
brother Damon. That left UCLA for McNown, where he enjoyed a fairly
successful freshman season, breaking into the starting lineup early
on and guiding the Bruins to the Aloha Bowl, winning five of his
nine starts.
Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30 PDT and the game will be broadcast
on Channel 9 as the Pac-10/Fox Sports Syndicated Game of the
Week.
STEVE KIM/Daily Bruin
Danjuan Magee helps take down Heisman candidate Jake Plummer in
the ASU game.