TUCSON, Ariz. “”mdash; Inside the bowels of Arizona Stadium,
complete silence shadowed UCLA’s locker room.
Members of the Bruin team hesitated to even lift up their heads.
Few words were exchanged; glances were fleeting.
A once-boisterous team that spoke of heart and character was
suddenly looking for answers. The swagger was sapped. There was no
comeback this time, not even a glimmer of one.
This was a different UCLA team. It was a beaten one.
On Saturday night, complete pandemonium broke out as fans rushed
the field in celebration, mobbing the Arizona players after the
Wildcats’ improbable 52-14 stomping of UCLA.
The gut-wrenching defeat, UCLA’s worst since losing at
Oregon State by 48 points in 1999, reminded UCLA quarterback Drew
Olson of the drubbing they received from USC in 2003.
“They beat us in every way possible, and that’s how
we kind of felt tonight. That team just had our number
tonight,” Olson said. “It’s different, obviously
““ I haven’t been part of an 8-0 team that’s lost
like this.”
Arizona’s upset victory was just its third win in 22
conference home games, and its first back-to-back conference
victories since 2000. The loss dropped UCLA (8-1, 5-1 Pac-10) from
No. 7 to No. 14 in The Associated Press poll.
Against UCLA’s rush defense ““ 10th-ranked in the
Pac-10 ““ Arizona (3-6, 2-4), the worst running team in the
conference, pounded the ball for 329 yards on 43 carries and three
touchdowns.
The dilapidated UCLA defensive line left gaping holes for
Wildcat running back Mike Bell, who scurried for 119 of his 153
yards in the first half.
Against UCLA’s pass defense, ranked top in the conference,
the Wildcats ran patterns up and down the backs of the Bruin
secondary.
“It seemed like we weren’t getting to places fast
enough on the field,” UCLA senior safety Jarrad Page said.
“It looked like we would get into the gap, but we came up a
little slow. Or we get cut off and then the guy runs past you. We
didn’t match their speed.”
Too much too quickly was what the Bruins experienced as they
gave up touchdowns in the Wildcats’ first four scoring
drives, trailing 28-0 with 10:08 remaining in the second
quarter.
Arizona freshman quarterback Willie Tuitama did his damage in
the first quarter, connecting on his first seven passes for 138
yards and two touchdowns.
Arizona, which came in as the second-worst offensive team in the
conference, ran up 519 total yards of offense.
“We were outcoached and outplayed today,” said UCLA
coach Karl Dorrell, who has a record of 1-9 in his three-year
tenure in games played after the month of October.
“It’s one of those things we pulled out all stops,
but apparently it wasn’t our day today. It wasn’t our
day to do anything right. And we didn’t do anything
right.”
Trailing 28-0, their largest deficit of the season, the Bruins
went to the two-minute offense in the second quarter to get quick
hits and catch the Wildcats.
Indicative of their night, however, was the play in which Olson
was halted on a fourth-and-one sneak on Arizona’s 6-yard line
after driving 73 yards down the field.
Coming into the game the fifth-highest-scoring team in the
nation and averaging nearly six touchdowns a game, UCLA did not
find the end zone until the end of the second quarter, on a 10-yard
pass to senior tight end Marcedes Lewis.
From the start of the third quarter, there was no let-up.
Bell scored on an 8-yard run and somersaulted into the end zone.
Minutes later, Arizona’s Syndric Steptoe recorded a 60-yard
punt return for a touchdown.
Arizona’s 21-point third quarter was capped off by a
lateral pass to Drew broken up by Arizona linebacker Marcus
Hollingsworth inside the Bruins’ 10-yard line. The ball
bounced into the end zone, with Hollingsworth recovering the fumble
for a touchdown, giving Arizona its biggest lead of the game,
52-7.
“Slowly but surely, we noticed them losing their
heart,” said Bell, who was carried off the field by players
and students after the game.
“We knew everything they wanted to do,” Arizona
senior defensive end Copeland Bryan said.
UCLA offensive coordinator Tom Cable felt that if the Bruins
could get one stop in the second half, “we could change that
momentum and energy level.
“I just felt we had no energy from the get-go,”
Cable said. “We had a good week of preparation and I am
really surprised by it. I’m just shocked.”
UCLA running back Maurice Drew, who was the third most prolific
scorer in the nation and is now fifth with an average of 12 points
per game, recorded no touchdowns and had just 41 yards on the
ground and 25 in the air.
A team waiting for the same Olson that engineered four
come-from-behind victories this season was met with a quarterback
who was sacked four times, harassed all game long, and never got
anything going.
Chants of “overrated” from the homecoming crowd of
55,755 began catching on.
“Coach Dorrell said it’s caught up with us,”
UCLA running back Chris Markey said. “You can’t just
play a half. We have too much on the line to be (messing) around
for the first half and expect to come back in the second
half.”
Just a few hundred feet away from the UCLA locker room, Arizona
was celebrating its first win against a top-10 team since its 1998
victory over then-No. 9 Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl.
And just across the field, UCLA felt what it was like to lose
for the first time.
“I think it might actually help us going down in the last
games of the season,” senior linebacker Wesley Walker said.
“You don’t want to be complacent, but I think
it’s natural. This was a wake-up game for us.”
Despite the ill fortune, Lewis viewed the loss in a different
light.
“We’re 8-1, not 1-8; it’s nothing to be
hanging our heads low (about),” he said.
“We know we’re a better team; we’ve showed it
this whole year. We just have to look ahead ““ we can’t
sit here and cry about it.”