There’s only so much a defense can do.
The UCLA defense managed to stonewall the Notre Dame offense for the entirety of Saturday’s game, but still walked away with a loss.
The Fighting Irish managed just 140 total yards of offense, but their defense scored one of their touchdowns directly off of a fumble by walk-on quarterback McLeod Bethel-Thompson. On only one of Notre Dame’s scoring drives did the Irish have to start from their own territory.
“To go out there and hold that offense to less than two hundred yards, it’s a tough one to take,” defensive end Bruce Davis said. “Any loss is bad ““ to lose to a 0-5 team when you should have won the game, when you’re in a position to win the game and you hand it over to them … that’s it, plain and simple.”
Davis had three sacks, but he was the only player getting consistent pressure on the quarterback. Still, it didn’t really seem to matter as coverage down field was good, as was the run defense.
The Bruins were just put into too many short-yardage situations, and could not create any turnovers ““ which is particularly damning when UCLA’s offense had seven total turnovers.
“When they don’t have any turnovers and you have six, that’s usually not a good thing,” coach Karl Dorrell said.
CONFERENCE LEADERS: The loudest cheer of the day erupted when it was announced in the third quarter that USC had lost to Stanford 24-23 ““ likely because both Notre Dame fans and UCLA fans are united in their enmity toward ‘SC.
But it also raises an important point for the Bruins, who are still 3-0 in the Pac-10. USC now has a conference loss. The only teams that remain undefeated in the conference are UCLA, Arizona State and Cal. With an improbable win two weeks from now against the Golden Bears, the Bruins could find themselves alone at the top of the Pac-10 standings ““ quite the feat for a team that has been beaten badly twice this year by previously winless teams.
“We’ve still got a lot to play for,” Davis said. “USC lost tonight, some big-time teams lost some football games tonight. We’re still 3-0 in the Pac-10. We can still win the Pac-10 championship.”
That mantra was echoed by his head coach: “We’re still in a good position in conference,” Dorrell said. “We’re going to have to come out and really evaluate things during the bye week.”
OLSON’S CONDITION: Dorrell said that quarterback Ben Olson will be evaluated over the weekend, but that the team does not believe Olson has as catastrophic an injury as a popping knee can indicate.
“It’s not a major injury,” Dorrell said. “We do feel that the structure of his knee is pretty good. We think all of his major ligaments are all intact, in pretty good shape.”
PRESSURE?: With four minutes to go in the fourth quarter, chants began in the southwest corner of the stadium. What were the fans saying?
“Fire Dorrell.”