For a season full of missteps, injuries and unexpected catastrophes, it is only fitting that it ended just this way:
Kai Forbath, the freshman kicker who had made two 50-plus-yard field goals in the game and had been nails for much of the season, lined up for a 28-yard chip shot that would seal a Las Vegas Bowl win, a final victory for a huge senior class, and a winning season.
But as the final seconds ticked away, as was perhaps appropriate given the nature of a season that began with hopes of a Rose Bowl and ended in the Las Vegas Bowl, Forbath’s kick glanced off the hand of a leaping BYU defender and landed on the Sam Boyd Stadium turf well short of the uprights.
The Bruins (6-7) lost 17-16.
Game ““ and season ““ over.
“I just wish we could have sent the seniors out with a victory,” interim coach DeWayne Walker said.
This game was a sort of audition for Walker, who is in the running to be the permanent replacement for former coach Karl Dorrell who was fired on Dec. 3 after finishing the regular season 6-6.
And despite losing in a heartbreaking fashion to the No. 17 Cougars (11-2), Walker’s players feel that he is deserving of the head coaching spot.
In the post game press conference, running back Chris Markey was emphatic: “Hire coach Walker.”
“He gets the best out of us, just being around him and how he coaches,” Markey, an offensive player, said of the former defensive coordinator. “I have a lot of emotions flowing right now. Coach Walker is a great coach, and that sums it up.”
And despite playing much of the game with a fourth-string walk-on quarterback manning the offense against a very stout BYU defense, the Bruins were in a position to win the game thanks to a defense that absolutely shut down the Cougars in the second half.
After giving up 17 points in the first half, and having serious issues defending the passes of Cougar quarterback Max Hall, UCLA shut out BYU in the second half. According to Walker, however, he already knew 17 was probably too much for UCLA’s beleaguered offense to match.
“Defensively, 17 points in the first half was a little too many points, to be honest with you,” Walker said. “We thought we had to keep them to 10 points to win the game, honestly.”
Quarterback McLeod Bethel-Thompson seemed to exorcise some of his demons from the Notre Dame game this year, in which he threw four interceptions and no touchdowns. Though not totally accurate, Bethel-Thompson threw for the only UCLA touchdown on the day following a forced fumble by freshman defensive tackle Brian Price in the waning moments of the first half.
In the end, though, the game just came down to one more unfortunate play, to one more unlucky break, in a season that has been full of them.
And the big senior class, which had been hoping to leave UCLA with a Pac-10 championship at the beginning of the season and then hoped simply for a winning record by the end of it, leaves UCLA ““ heartbroken ““ with neither.