EUGENE, Ore. “”mdash; These Bruins must be cowboys, because they
just continue to get back up and ride.
Throughout the football season, UCLA coach Karl Dorrell has
spoken time and time again about getting back on the proverbial
“horse.” Though his team has seen incredible adversity
and endured crushing disappointments, Dorrell has remained
steadfast that his team will dust itself off, get right back up,
and continue riding.
Well, ride on.
Coming off perhaps their worst game of the season, the now
bowl-eligible Bruins played one of their best games of the season
Saturday, defeating Oregon 34-26 on the road and demonstrating once
again the resiliency and resolve that has come to characterize this
team.
“This win shows the character of this team, the leadership
of this team, the fight, the pride we have,” quarterback Drew
Olson said. “To come off that disappointing loss where we
felt like we gave it away and the way we played today … it was
four quarters of inspired football, and that’s what I’m
most impressed about.
“This is by far the biggest win of the last two
seasons.”
After last weekend’s 31-29 loss to lowly Washington State,
many questioned whether UCLA (6-4, 4-3 Pac-10) would be able to
respond. And after the beginning of the game Saturday, which saw
Oregon (5-5, 4-3) score a touchdown in the first 90 seconds,
it’s safe to say that the questioning grew louder.
But the team made big plays when it mattered, from cornerback
Trey Brown’s interception return for a touchdown in the first
quarter to receiver Junior Taylor’s backbreaking 83-yard
touchdown reception late in the third quarter. Whenever the
momentum looked like it might be shifting in Oregon’s favor,
the Bruins made a play.
“This team has fight,” said tailback Manuel White,
who finished with 21 carries for 82 yards and two touchdowns.
“We’re never going to give up. We’re going to
play to the wire.”
After Oregon scored first to make the score 7-0, it was the
Bruin defense that responded, as Brown, only a freshman,
intercepted a Kellen Clemens’ pass and took it 43 yards for
the score. The sellout crowd of 58,344 at Autzen Stadium became
eerily silent.
“Trey Brown’s interception was huge,” said
defensive coordinator Larry Kerr, whose defense held Oregon to only
337 yards. “I think it really got the quarterback out of a
rhythm. I think the interception kind of stunned him, and the
consistent pass rush did, too.”
Following the interception return, UCLA seized control of the
game, riding freshman tailback Chris Markey and White. Markey,
filling in for the injured Maurice Drew, played the game of his
young career, finishing with 131 yards rushing on 23 carries. He
also had five receptions for 84 yards.
“The rook got off today,” White said of his freshman
pupil. “We see him do it every day in practice, so we were
happy to see him do it on a large scale.”
But the biggest play of the day came from Taylor.
Though the Bruins appeared ready to collapse after allowing 10
unanswered points that cut their lead to 24-20, they did nothing of
the kind. Facing a long third-and-nine from his own 17-yard line in
the face of deafening crowd noise, Olson stepped up, hit Taylor on
a slant, and the rest is history.
“I knew I wasn’t going to get caught,” Taylor
said. “I’ve got too much heart and pride, and I was
going to make sure that I got into the endzone for this team. We
needed it big-time.”
Had UCLA not been able to make a play on that critical third
down, it’s quite possible that the Ducks would have taken
over the game. But just like they’ve done all season when
faced with adversity, the Bruins responded.
“There’s no doubt the momentum was turning
there,” Taylor said. “We needed to do something, we
needed to respond. Drew was able to hit me, and I was able to
finish it off.”
The Bruins were even able to finish the game and secure a bowl
bid, something they couldn’t do earlier in the season.
With Markey and White carrying the football so well and Olson
making good, smart decisions in the pocket, UCLA overcame
Oregon’s final charge. Kicker Justin Medlock’s second
field goal with two minutes left put the Bruins up by eight, and
the defense forced a fourth-down incompletion on Oregon’s
final drive to seal the team’s biggest victory of the
season.
“Come on, that was a great win for UCLA football,”
offensive coordinator Tom Cable said. “That says everything
about Karl Dorrell, about every kid on this team, from seniors to
the freshmen. And after what we did last week, the egg we laid, to
come back like this, to regroup, gather ourselves together and keep
trusting each other, it’s just a phenomenal win.”
Phenomenal indeed, especially considering the lackluster effort
the Bruins put forth against Washington State.
“Everybody wrote us off after that Washington State
game,” said safety Jarrad Page, who had a key interception
near the end of the second quarter as well as a critical pass
breakup in the fourth. “The thing is, we don’t know
where that came from last week. It just wasn’t us.”
“We knew that we would come back. We were happy with our
week of practice, and we knew we would come in here ready to
play.”
The Bruins have had to respond all season. One week after
blowing an 11-point lead with seven minutes left in the game
against Arizona State, the Bruins came out and blanked Stanford,
21-0. After experiencing some of their lowest lows, the Bruins have
come back the next week to some of their highest highs.
It must be something about that horse.
“It’s always tough when you have a setback like we
had a week ago,” Dorrell said. “The hardest thing is
getting back up. When you’re a young football team and you
have some setbacks late in the year, it’s hard to get back
up.
“But these guys, I believed in them. They believed in each
other about finishing up the season the right way. There was no
doubt that we were going to come in here and play a very good
football game.”
And now, with a three-week break before hosting No. 1 USC, the
ride for the Bruins will be pleasant ““ just like these
cowboys planned it.