Saturday’s game was supposed to answer all the questions
we had about this UCLA team.
As it turns out, we shouldn’t have even had to ask.
Could the Bruins win a crucial game in November? Umm, they
proved that last year at Oregon.
Could the offense get back on track? Duh, it was averaging 40
points a game going into this match.
Could the team bounce back from an embarrassing loss to Arizona?
Heck, it’s been coming back from embarrassing situations all
season long.
After validating themselves in every possible way during
Saturday’s victory over Arizona State, there was only one
fair question left to ask the Bruins.
How could they have even stumbled against Arizona in the first
place?
Well, simply put, they had to. The Bruins’ attitude this
entire season has made the last two games plainly predictable.
Throughout this year, the players have been set on restoring the
program’s prestige. Six years of letdowns and mediocrity have
had the upperclassmen hell-bent on putting UCLA back on the
national map.
“You play Wyoming and lose and you go home and
everyone’s talking about you,” running back Maurice
Drew said of last year’s loss in the Las Vegas Bowl.
“We all came back and everyone was tired of it. We said
we’re going to do whatever it takes to win.”
Eight games in, boasting an undefeated record and a No. 5
ranking, the Bruins thought they had achieved their goal. Call it
arrogance or complacence, but in either case, their motivational
force had basically pulled off the road and parked at a rest
stop.
The schedule was softening up. The fans were hypothesizing
national championship scenarios. Even the skeptics were jumping on
the bandwagon. In short, what had driven the Bruins at the start of
the year was no longer at the wheel.
That’s why the Arizona debacle was so foreseeable.
In the immediate aftermath, it knocked UCLA out of the BCS
picture. It also brought back all the skeptics. And in the process,
it brought back the Bruins’ motivation.
“I’ve never seen a team take a loss so badly
immediately after and the day after,” senior quarterback Drew
Olson said. “It was the attitude of we’re not going to
let it happen or even let it come close. Just that little taste, we
found that drove us and motivated us even more this
week.”
It’s a bit unfortunate that it took such a devastating
loss to inspire such a talented team, but it’s refreshing to
see how well this team can play when inspired. Against the Sun
Devils, the Bruins showed they can score on the first play from
scrimmage, hold an offensive juggernaut to one second-half
touchdown, and win a big game without fourth-quarter heroics.
As a result, they’re heading into the crosstown rivalry
answering questions about the conference title instead of a
late-season collapse. And although their loss to the Wildcats may
be in the rear-view mirror now, the Bruins have learned it may be
best to keep its aftertaste in the forefront.
“I really think it helped us,” Drew said of the
setback in Tucson. “We were riding pretty high and they
knocked us down and let us know we weren’t as good as we
thought we were. We have to come out and prove each week how good
we are.”
After hearing Drew talk about the positives stemming from last
week’s loss, I asked him whether another setback on Saturday
would have been beneficial going into the USC game.
“No, no, not really,” he responded.
I guess that’s just one more question that shouldn’t
have even been asked.
If this last pair of games was perfectly predictable, Finley
wouldn’t have picked them both wrong. E-mail him at
afinley@media.ucla.edu if you guessed right these last two
weekends.