BERKELEY “”mdash; For much of the game, the UCLA offense looked
as crisp as ever, moving the ball seamlessly and converting on
several third-and-long scenarios. However, even though things
seemed to be running smoothly, the Bruins could not produce offense
when they needed it the most: inside California territory.
UCLA held a number of promising drives throughout the night,
only to have them fall short of the end zone time after time in
crucial junctures of the game en route to a 38-24 drubbing at the
hands of its Northern Californian counterpart.
“What’s frustrating is that (you’ve) got to
score when you get a chance to score, and we didn’t do that
in a couple circumstances,” coach Karl Dorrell said.
SLIDESHOW
Click here to see more photos from the game against Cal
Saturday.
“Yeah, you want to progress as you move along, but
it’s about winning games. I know that’s part of my job
is winning games, and we got to continue to do that. We got to work
hard on doing that and that’s what I told the team,”
Dorrell said.
In particular, quarterback Pat Cowan seemed to be having his
best game of the year, consistently leading the Bruins into enemy
territory and showing great poise in finding his receivers whether
he was stepping up in the pocket or rolling out to either end.
But despite his growth, Cowan still showed his relative
inexperience as a starter, throwing two critical interceptions
““ one in the waning minutes of the second quarter and one in
the third, stalling what could have been productive UCLA
drives.
“The point to play is to win,” said a frustrated
Cowan, who finished with a career-high 329 yards through the air as
well as a touchdown run of six yards. “Unfortunately, we
haven’t been (doing that). You want to get better in
everything that you’re doing at all times. We’re
getting better; we’re growing.”
Cowan and the Bruins made it into Berkeley territory on every
possession in the first half, piling up 248 yards of total offense,
but converted for a touchdown on just one of those
opportunities.
“This is becoming a trend,” redshirt senior wide out
Junior Taylor said about the team’s inability to punch the
ball into the end zone. “We got to convert. It’s
costing us ball games. We wished we could’ve punched it in,
but we couldn’t once again.”
The theme of not scoring touchdowns is not new to this team, but
what was foreign was not at least converting some of those drives
in field goals, as even Justin Medlock, the nation’s leading
place kicker, was off the mark, missing wide right on two costly
field goals on a windy night in the Bay Area.
But even with the senior’s troubles, the team knows it
still needs touchdowns, not field goals, if it wants to win games
of this caliber.
“It is difficult to look back and think that we had
opportunities to be up big time going into the half,” Taylor
said. “That’s what makes it so hard. It is one thing if
you go out there and just get flat-out beat for four quarters by a
better team, but this isn’t the case. We should’ve had
a couple big plays and other points we left on the field in the
first half that would have made a huge difference.”
Suddenly, the Bruins find themselves mired in a four-game losing
streak and in danger of not even qualifying for a bowl game.
The team must now win two of its final three games in order to
become bowl-eligible, and a large portion of that possibility will
depend on whether or not the offense can start converting.
“We’re going to keep working hard because I know
that (the offense’s ability to score touchdowns) is
there,” Dorrell said.
“I know it”˜s there. And we showed signs of it being
there. We just got to have consistency,” he said.