[Football Online Exclusive] Team’s “˜fresh’ start a sour performance

It’s enough to make you throw the rest of your UCLA
football season ticket package on the barbecue and shut your
television off with a sledgehammer. They fooled us. Again.

Last winter you swore you wouldn’t get your hopes up this
fall. Not after the Bruins lost five straight games, were exposed
by USC, and then embarrassed by Fresno State on a muddy field in
San Jose.

But by late August, you were excited again. This team was
different. It worked harder, cared more, and had a better attitude.
All it needed was a fresh start.

Well, so much for all of that.

With its 31-20 victory Saturday afternoon, Oklahoma State
revealed UCLA’s vulnerabilities and rammed the Bruins’
season-opening optimism right back down their throats.

Consider this. UCLA probably won’t face a worse
quarterback all season than the Cowboys’ ultra-athletic but
noodle-armed freshman Donovan Woods. Leading an offense that was
more one-dimensional than an Adam Sandler movie, Woods completed
just two passes Saturday for a whopping 23 yards.

But credit the Oklahoma State coaching staff for sticking with
the game plan. Why throw the ball when your offensive line is
opening up holes big enough to drive the entire Rose Parade through
them?

The Cowboys ran over the youthful, injury-plagued UCLA defense,
piling up 426 yards on the ground. Running back Vernand Morency had
261 of them, conjuring up images of former Oklahoma State star
Barry Sanders with his shifty elusiveness.

Still, even Barry Manilow probably could have run for 150 yards
the way the Bruins tackled on Saturday.

Karl Dorrell was quick to remind us not to get down on this team
during his postgame press conference.

“There are still 10 more games left this season,” he
said.

As if that’s a good thing.

The Bruins, like any zero-loss team, had the home fans on their
side Saturday, at least until just before halftime when the hopeful
Rose Bowl crowd began to sour. Already disheartened by a 14-point
UCLA deficit, the fans directed their boos at the home team’s
passive play-calling on a botched two-minute drill.

It only got worse for the Bruins in the second half, as by the
fourth quarter much of the blue-and-gold-clad crowd was already on
the highway headed home. One of the diehards who did stay stated
the obvious: “It’s going to be a tough year.”

No one would have paid much attention if it hadn’t been
for Geoff Strand, the famed alumni yell leader, who happened to be
equipped with a microphone at the time.

You know it might get ugly when yell leaders are turning on the
home team.

The Bruins, to their credit, seemed determined not to let the
negativity affect them.

“We saw how good we can be if we take care of a few
things,” said running back Manuel White Jr., who racked up a
career-high 145 yards rushing Saturday. “Of course we wish we
could have won, but you win them, you lose them.”

It’s just that the Bruins have been losing a lot more of
them lately.

To be fair, there certainly were some positives that came out of
Saturday’s game for UCLA. White ““ forgotten a year ago
in the season opener ““ was sensational, and the whole Bruin
offensive line looked much better.

In fact, UCLA’s entire offense, despite four turnovers,
seemed to finally understand the intricacies of Dorrell’s
West Coast offense. So I guess looking forward to 40-35 losses this
season beats losing 10-6 like last year.

“I feel good about this team and about this offense
especially,” quarterback Drew Olson said. “This is a
game we should have won, but we’ll be all right.”

If the offense protects the ball better, the defense gets
healthy. And if Tab Perry gets back into football shape, the
offense might do just that. Otherwise the season ““ and a few
fans’ sheets of season tickets ““ could go up in
smoke.

Eisenberg’s columns will appear every Monday during
football season. E-mail him at jeisenberg@media.ucla.edu.

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