It may sound funny, but the Bruins had the Trojans right where they wanted them.
Having just trimmed the deficit to 14-7 late in the fourth quarter, UCLA had all of the momentum and plenty of hope.
While the USC offense took the field clinging to a seven-point lead with 5:41 remaining in the game, a confident UCLA defense looked to get off of it as quickly as possible.
But that didn’t happen, and the Bruins’ offense never got the chance coach Rick Neuheisel envisioned.
“I would have believed that we were going to get the ball back at 14-7,” Neuheisel said. “I thought we were going to have a great chance to tie and get to overtime.”
Instead, true freshman quarterback Matt Barkley provided the heroics, guiding USC on a nine-play, 73-yard drive.
Trojan running back Allen Bradford provided the muscle, capping the drive with a short scoring run. During the drive, Bradford burned the Bruins for 30 of his game-high 70 rushing yards.
“We had played a solid game,” redshirt senior linebacker Reggie Carter said. “All of a sudden they got a drive going with a couple of big passes. They caught us out of position.”
Barkley was 4-of-5 passing on the drive, including a gut-wrenching, 20-yard completion to receiver Ronald Johnson on a third and three following a USC time-out.
“It just seemed like they had the right play calls,” sophomore safety Tony Dye said.
Bradford followed Barkley’s lead, scampering 21 yards to the Bruins’ two-yard line on the very next play. Dye was there to prevent him from scoring, but on his next carry, Bradford romped into the end zone untouched to hand the Trojans a commanding 21-7 lead and bring the USC faithful at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to a state of relief.
By then, more than four minutes had ticked off the game clock. Only 1:30 remained by the time UCLA regained possession.
Not exactly what the Bruins had hoped for.
“It felt like a letdown,” sophomore defensive end Datone Jones said. “We had a chance to shut them down and send our offense back on the field.”
The Bruins’ defense had allowed one touchdown prior to the Trojans’ game-deciding drive.
But even on that score, USC had been set up deep in Bruin territory at the UCLA 29-yard line following redshirt freshman quarterback Kevin Prince’s second interception.
“Without the pick and without them scoring, it would have been scoreless,” sophomore safety Rahim Moore said. “But things happen, and ‘SC is ‘SC. They put points on the board, and we just didn’t come through.”
The first interception Prince threw put the Bruins in an early 7-0 hole when USC linebacker Malcolm Smith jumped a short route and took the ball 62 yards the other way. Neuheisel called Smith’s interception return “the difference in the game.”
Redshirt senior quarterback Kevin Craft, who took over for the injured Prince, was also picked off once. With the Bruins trailing by seven, sophomore receiver Nelson Rosario lost a fumble during a pivotal UCLA drive before halftime.
“You’ve got to give credit to their defense,” Neuheisel said. “They played well. Their extra week (of preparation) helped. They had some different stuff.”
UCLA’s defense had played well prior to USC’s two late-game touchdowns. The Bruins held the Trojans to 4-of-12 on third-down conversions and forced USC’s Jacob Harfman to punt eight times.
Moore, though, was quick to refute any moral victories.
“We didn’t do good enough to win,” Moore said. “Overall it was a bad day for us. We did some good things, but we didn’t do good enough to win.”
Senior cornerback Alterraun Verner, who prevented further damage when he intercepted Barkley near UCLA’s goal line in the first half, shared Moore’s view.
“Keeping it competitive was good and dandy, but we were expecting to win,” he said. “There’s no moral victory when you lose to your rival.”
Unlike Verner, a graduating senior, younger members of the UCLA defense will have another chance to stop USC.
“That’s a momentum builder for next year,” Jones said. “We need to prevent that from happening.”