PALO ALTO “”mdash; After Bruin sophomore wide receiver Marcus
Everett fumbled with 11:41 remaining in the fourth quarter, pockets
of UCLA fans began migrating toward Stanford
Stadium’s exits.
Many more followed nearly three minutes later when
Stanford’s Nick Frank rumbled in for a touchdown to give his
team a seemingly insurmountable 21-point lead.
While a few fans filtered back into the rickety wooden stadium,
those who didn’t happened to miss the most improbable and
stunning of UCLA’s four come-from-behind victories this
season, a 30-27 overtime win against Stanford in front of 45,280
fans Saturday night.
“This was No. 1, by far,” senior linebacker Justin
London said. “This better be an instant classic. Check your
local listings.”
“Most teams would have folded (being) down 21 points with
only nine minutes left in the game,” Bruins coach Karl
Dorrell said.
As the 2005 season has shown, however, UCLA (8-0, 5-0), only one
of five teams left in Division I to still be undefeated, is hardly
like most teams.
Saturday’s comeback against Stanford (4-3, 3-2 Pac-10)
marks the fourth time in the month of October that No. 7 UCLA (The
Associated Press Poll) has come back from a double-digit deficit in
the fourth quarter, and the 21-point hole in the fourth quarter
Saturday is the largest the Bruins have ever clawed out of to
win.
But this comeback was quite different than its predecessors,
calling for a different post-game celebration.
After the game and for the first time this season, Dorrell came
out of the locker room to address reporters with his clothes soaked
with not one but two huge buckets of Gatorade. It may have well
have been sweat with what the Bruins put their coach through
Saturday night.
“We can’t keep doing this,” redshirt senior
linebacker Spencer Havner said.
Never were UCLA’s undefeated record and Rose Bowl
aspirations in more jeopardy of vanishing this season then when the
Bruins trailed the Cardinal 24-3 with more than half the fourth
quarter having already ticked away.
And in an eerily similar reminder of the UCLA team of 2001, it
appeared an undefeated and highly ranked Bruin team had come to
Stanford Stadium and seen its dream season end at the willing hands
of the Cardinal.
“I don’t know what it is about up here, but
it’s just hard to win here,” said running back Maurice
Drew.
But that fate was altered by the right arm of quarterback Drew
Olson, the cushion of Stanford’s soft defense in the fourth
quarter, and the awaiting arms of UCLA receiver Brandon Breazell.
Down 24-3 with 8:26 remaining, Olson engineered two quick-striking
drives of 65 and 72 yards, respectively, to bring UCLA to 24-17
with 4:43 left in regulation. Still down by seven and faced with a
fourth-and-one with only 56 seconds left, Olson rolled out to his
right and found receiver Joe Cowan, the third option on the play,
to move to the Stanford 1-yard line to set up the game-tying
score.
“Once we got into overtime, we were optimistic we could
finish the game,” Dorrell said. “The momentum was
swinging our way.”
After the Bruin defense held the Cardinal to a field goal in the
overtime’s first possession, Breazell welcomed in a 23-yard
pass from Olson in the left corner of the end zone for the
game-winning score, delivering UCLA’s first victory at
Stanford Stadium since 1997.
Like the Stanford marching band at halftime, UCLA players
stormed aimlessly onto the field, not knowing whom to hug or what
to do following Breazell’s touchdown, all the while dancing
past several Cardinal defenders who lay motionless on the field
after what had just transpired.
“There’s just no bottom, no hole that’s too
deep for us, I guess,” Havner said.
“We couldn’t lose it here,” senior tight end
Marcedes Lewis said. “Not to Stanford and not right
now.”
Seven minutes of brilliant football in the fourth quarter
ensured that wouldn’t happen. The 53 minutes of football that
preceded it, however, made coming back to win exponentially more
difficult.
Coming into Saturday’s game with the fifth-most prolific
scoring offense in the country, the Bruin offense looked anemic for
most of the game.
After the first quarter, Stanford quarterback Trent Edwards had
as many completions (8) as UCLA had total yards of offense.
And heading into the fourth quarter, the Cardinal had done as
good a job as any team before it in limiting the productivity of
Olson, Drew and Lewis, holding the Bruin offense to a mere 147
yards through three quarters.
The Bruins were so thoroughly outplayed in the first three
quarters that their performance had given life to what started as
an apathetic crowd.
“(Stanford) is a heck of a football team, and they whipped
us for three-and-half quarters,” offensive coordinator Tom
Cable said. “The last 7:04, (we played) unbelievably. Before
that, we looked like the Bad News Bears.”
“It’s awesome winning like this after playing so
badly,” said Olson, who threw for 206 yards and two
touchdowns in the fourth quarter and overtime.
For a team that treats fourth-quarter deficits like most other
teams do double-digit leads, the Bruins, who have already shown
their flair for the dramatic three times before this season, were
still taken aback by how Saturday’s game unfolded.
Following the 10-point comeback against Washington, the feeling
was one of relief.
Following the 12-point comeback against California, it was one
of finally breaking through.
Following the 17-point comeback against Washington State, it was
one of surging confidence.
But following the 21-point comeback against Stanford, it was one
of disbelief and speechlessness.
“We were down 21 points with seven minutes left ““
that’s crazy, man,” Lewis said. “It’s
crazy.”
“I really don’t know what to say,” Olson
said.
Well, there is one thing.
“I hate that tree,” said Havner, referring to the
Cardinal’s mascot.
After following the fans who stayed to the end out to the exit
Saturday, he’ll never have to see that tree or play in
Stanford Stadium ever again.