Watching UCLA’s dismal yet barely good enough performance
against Washington at the Rose Bowl Saturday, I couldn’t help
but think back to last year.
I’ve found myself doing that a lot with this football
team, mostly in an attempt to convince myself that this is nothing
like last year. Saturday simply helped support the hypothesis.
Here’s what happened last season: UCLA beat Stanford 21-0
on Oct. 30. The defense played great for the first time all season,
and many people seemed to agree that the win over the Cardinal
could very well be the turning point.
The next week, a reeling Washington State team was coming to the
Rose Bowl. It was supposed to be an easy victory for the Bruins, a
confidence-builder ingeniously built into the schedule to catapult
the team to new heights in the latter stages of the season.
It wasn’t.
UCLA played terribly, almost won, but didn’t. The Cougars
left Pasadena as 31-29 winners, and the Bruins were left to survey
the damage from the locker room.
“It’s a real shame that we would come out and play
with that little emotion and attention to detail and lack of
concentration and effort,” offensive coordinator Tom Cable
said after the loss last year.
“It’s definitely a lack of focus,” safety
Jarrad Page said.
Everywhere I turned in the locker room last season, the
sentiment was the same.
“We just came out flat today,” quarterback Drew
Olson said.
And here’s the funny thing about sports. If
Saturday’s game against Washington had ended after 58 minutes
instead of 60, a nearly identical attitude would have permeated the
locker room. UCLA would have been forced to explain how a 1-3 team
could come into the Rose Bowl and play with so much more emotion
and desire than the Bruins did.
Instead, no explanations were necessary (though perhaps they
should have been). Olson stepped up, receiver Marcus Everett made a
huge play late in the fourth quarter, and the Bruins won a game
they probably had no business winning. I suppose that’s what
good teams do.
“We wouldn’t have been able to win this game last
year,” linebacker Spencer Havner said. “Our defense
wouldn’t be able to stop them. The defense had to make plays
this time around.”
UCLA would have lost this game last year. I’m almost
certain of that. But some way, somehow, the Bruins found a way to
win Saturday. And though stylish victories are a lot more fun, the
overused sports cliché continues to ring true: A win’s a
win.
Look at this game within the context of last year’s
Washington State game.
UCLA entered Saturday’s game coming off arguably the
program’s most important victory in several years. The
emphatic victory over Oklahoma was said to signal the resurgence of
UCLA football, and the Washington game was supposed to be little
more than a rankings booster before the huge game against Cal.
Students were talking about 20, 30, 40 point victories. The line
was 21.5 points.
The excitement in the student section at the Rose Bowl was
palpable.
By halftime, UCLA fans simply wanted a win.
The Bruins came out flat. They didn’t score in the first
half. The intensity and fire that was so apparent against the
Sooners seemed to be very much lacking.
“They just came out and played harder than us,”
running back Maurice Drew said. “I don’t know what we
expected, but it was a real eye-opener. We didn’t come out
aggressive.
“We thought they were going to lay down (but) they came
out and hit us in the mouth, and it became a street fight at the
end.”
Fortunately, it was a street fight the Bruins were able to
win.
And hopefully, it’s a fight the Bruins will learn
from.
If they don’t, it could be another long season.
“It is a relief for the moment just because we won the
game,” coach Karl Dorrell said. “We still have so much
work to do, and that’s disappointing.
“I’m not more disappointed than I was encouraged,
though.”
It’s a great thing to find encouraging. The Bruins were
able to win, even though they played far below the level of which
they are capable.
Now the team is in a great position. The Bruins know there is a
lot of work to be done. They should feel embarrassed and angry,
knowing that Saturday could very easily have been the point where
the season turned south. But they’re still 4-0, and a top-10
team comes to town Saturday.
It’s a tremendous chance, and UCLA had better be
ready.
They weren’t ready on Saturday, yet they still pulled out
a victory.
That wouldn’t have happened one season ago, and
that’s an encouraging sign.
E-mail Regan at dregan@media.ucla.edu if you also think UCLA
has a lot to learn from Saturday’s game.