Bruins Look on the Sunny Side

UCLA senior quarterback Drew Olson, a history major, understands the significance of the Bruins’ game against Northwestern in the Sun Bowl on Dec. 30.

A victory would give UCLA only its seventh 10-win season and help ease the pain from the Bruins’ 47-point, regular-season-ending loss to USC.

“This season has been a great one for this program,” Olson said. “To cap it off with a win would be awesome. It would put an exclamation point to the season.”

At 9-2, the 17th-ranked Bruins, who return to practice today, have had plenty of high moments. They defeated three bowl-bound teams -- Oklahoma, California and Arizona State -- and won four games with dramatic fourth-quarter rallies.

But UCLA’s two defeats in its final three games were ugly. After the Bruins’ 8-0 start, a 52-14 loss at Arizona and a 66-19 loss to USC have left a bitter taste. That’s why Olson said the Bruins are so excited about playing another game.

“It’s good to try and move away from that SC game,” said Olson, who completed 14 of 32 passes for 146 yards and one touchdown against USC, his least productive game of the season.

“We’re ready to take on a new challenge and get our 10th win. Any time that you come off a loss like the one we suffered, you want to get back on the field as soon as possible.”

The Bruins will practice eight times before facing the Wildcats in El Paso. It will be the first meeting between the programs since 1970, and for UCLA Coach Karl Dorrell that’s a good thing.

“We actually get to fly somewhere [for a bowl game], which is something that we haven’t done the last few years,” said Dorrell, whose teams lost against Fresno State in the Silicon Valley Classic in 2003 and Wyoming in the Las Vegas Bowl last year.

“The players will be excited about playing in a new atmosphere against an opponent that we’re really not that familiar with.”

In the next two weeks, Dorrell’s goal is not only to prepare the Bruins for Northwestern but also to get in extra work as a jump-start to next year’s spring practice.

“It’s fun to be able to groom our young players and to continue to compete,” said Dorrell, who has a 21-15 record with the Bruins.

“We wanted to contend for the conference championship and we did.

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Olson on Justin Medlock, the junior kicker suspended indefinitely for his role in what police say was an alcohol-related, one-car accident earlier this month: “It was obviously a mistake and he’ll learn from it, but as a team we’re 100% behind him.

“The decision he made may not have been good, but the key is that he and [passenger UCLA golfer Hannah Jun] are all right. It could have been fatal.”

Medlock, booked on suspicion of felony drunk-driving causing injury and felony hit-and-run, is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 3 in Inglewood.