PASADENA – For three-quarters of their season opener on
Saturday, UCLA scuffled. But the Bruins, not ones to shy away from
a good fight, fought through it. The men in baby blue, known for
their barroom brawls in recent weeks, scored 23 points in the
fourth quarter and came from behind to take down No. 19 Colorado
State 30-19 at the Rose Bowl. The defense provided the knockout
blow. With under two minutes remaining in the game and UCLA leading
21-19, Brandon Chillar and Steve Morgan stuffed CSU quarterback
Bradlee Van Pelt’s run on a 2-point conversion attempt. Van
Pelt, who had run for a 7-yard touchdown on 4th-and-3, flipped the
ball in desperation back behind him, where Bruin safety Ben Emanuel
scooped it up and ran it 89 yards the other way to score two points
for UCLA. Fullback Manuel White tacked on a 16-yard touchdown run
for good measure with 1:01 left after the Bruins had recovered an
onside kick. “Our defense played hard and rallied,”
UCLA head coach Bob Toledo said. “For our team to do that
against a Top-20 team, I was proud.” Earlier in the fourth
quarter, Bruin cornerback Ricky Manning Jr. tattooed running back
Cecil Sapp after Van Pelt had dumped the ball off to him, and Rusty
Williams recovered the fumble for UCLA. On the following play,
White rumbled in for a 16-yard touchdown that gave the Bruins a
21-13 lead with 8:48 left. “We just kept pounding them until
they laid down,” said Manning, who was arrested 11 days
before the game for felony assault at a Westwood bar. “It was
the turning point in the game.” Tailback Akil Harris ran for
a 1-yard touchdown to put UCLA up 14-13 with 9:52 left, capping a
9-play, 52-yard drive quarterbacked by Drew Olson. Olson, the true
freshman backup to senior Cory Paus, completed a screen and a quick
slant on the key fourth-quarter drive and was 2-of-3 for 24 yards
on the night. “For an 18-year-old kid, he’s a pretty
poised player,” Toledo said of Olson. “The experience
he gets will pay off down the road.” “That was the best
feeling with the stadium going crazy,” Olson said. “I
couldn’t ask for anything else.” Paus, meanwhile, was
booed for his putting together a characteristically up-and-down
performance. His first three series led to punts, and he was
intercepted after heaving the ball from his own endzone into double
coverage. The mistake led to a 32-yard field goal by CSU’s
Jeff Babcock, which gave the Rams a 13-7 halftime lead. Without a
backup with any college experience to the injury-prone Paus, Toledo
planned to insert Olson into the game in the second quarter.
However, Toledo didn’t want Paus, who went 7-of-17 for 78
yards in the first half, to come out on a bad note. After Paus
finally started to get it together in the third quarter, Toledo put
in Olson as promised. “I was a little surprised by that
because I was starting to get in a groove, but thank God it worked
out for all of us,” Paus said. “It was an opportunity
for (Olson) to get his feet wet.” Paus returned in the fourth
quarter and finished 12-of-23 for 142 yards and the one
interception. Van Pelt went 13-of-30 for 91 yards with one
interception, and he ran for 57 yards on 16 carries. Sapp finished
with 105 yards on 24 attempts. UCLA impressively piled up 215 yards
and four touchdowns on the ground. Harris ran for 94 yards on 13
carries, while White gained 52 yards on 11 attempts. While CSU
already had two wins under their belts, UCLA, the last Division I-A
team to begin play, showed first-game jitters. Shoddy special teams
play, highlighted by a fumble on the opening kickoff by Harris, was
the main reason that UCLA’s average starting field position
was their own 15-yard-line in the first half. Chris Griffith had
his 41-yard field goal attempt blocked in the second quarter. He
also hooked a 32-yard try on the following possession. UCLA failed
to score until, with 13:57 left in the first half, freshman wide
receiver Junior Taylor took an end-around on his first career touch
and wove through the defense untouched to score a 49-yard
touchdown. The trick play was in response to CSU’s previous
drive, in which the burly Sapp lofted a perfectly placed option
pass to tight end Joel Dreessen for a 7-yard touchdown, giving the
Rams a 10-0 lead to open the second quarter. Babcock had connected
from 35 yards out on CSU’s opening drive.