Bruins May Have the Swing Vote

As a baseball bromide, it ranks with “Take it one game at a time,” and “Keep your eye on the ball.”

“Stay within yourself,” coaches tell players before big games. It means avoiding the adrenaline-fueled temptation to accomplish more than is necessary, such as trying to hit a 500-foot home run when a single will do.

Inevitably, a player who doesn’t heed the advice tightens up, forgets the fundamentals and fails.

The UCLA football team has many players who excelled at baseball in high school. Quarterback Drew Olson was a pro prospect as a catcher. His backup, Matt Moore, was a tremendous shortstop. Safety Jarrad Page turned down a $700,000 big league signing bonus.

Cornerbacks Ricky Manning Jr. and Matt Ware are, in fact, pro baseball players, pursuing their careers each summer in the minor leagues.

Yet against USC two weeks ago, nearly all the Bruins got caught up in the heated-rivalry atmosphere, made a string of fatal mistakes early and lost, 52-21.

Stayed within themselves? Hardly. They had a full-blown out-of-body experience.

“There was so much emotion that everything is taken out of you, once there are some mistakes and you fall behind,” Olson said. “We all learned a lesson. You can’t try to do too much. It was a huge lesson and we were all embarrassed.”

The Bruins (7-4) promise to take a different approach today against No. 7 Washington State (9-2) in a game with enormous implications, national and local. The atmosphere, however, should be conducive to calm nerves. Only about 55,000 are expected at the Rose Bowl, compared to the 91,000 that jammed the place against USC.

“This game matters to a lot of people, but we are taking it as a regular game and approaching it like that,” Moore said.

The outcome will have a ripple effect throughout college football, determining the bowl fortunes of more than a dozen teams, most of whom want UCLA to win and oust Washington State from the bowl championship series.

There is a huge financial stake for the Pacific 10 Conference, which wants UCLA to lose, probably ensuring two BCS teams from the conference. A UCLA loss sends Washington State to the Rose Bowl and USC probably to the Orange Bowl or Sugar Bowl.

However, Trojan fans able to stomach the idea are pulling for a UCLA victory, which would put USC in the Rose Bowl.

“It is exciting,” UCLA Coach Bob Toledo said. “We have a chance to knock [Washington State] out of the Rose Bowl race, to change a lot of the bowl pictures and the BCS.”

Toledo has a chance to do something else as well -- save his job. The second consecutive humiliating loss to USC triggered an outpouring of venom among Bruin followers, many of whom wield influence.

Another defeat -- even in a game the Bruins are not favored to win -- could prompt Athletic Director Dan Guerrero to recommend to Chancellor Albert Carnesale that Toledo be replaced. Indications are that Carnesale, who has previously overruled some athletic department decisions, would sign off on whatever Guerrero decides.

If Toledo does survive another loss, it will be primarily for financial reasons. UCLA has never paid coaches the going rate, which in football is skyrocketing. On Thursday, Texas A&M; agreed to pay Dennis Franchione about $2 million a year.

Firing Toledo would involve buying out his contract at $1.3 million, then hiring a new coach at more than double Toledo’s salary of $578,000. Even though boosters have pledged to pay for Toledo’s buyout, the powers that be in the UC system might not like the math, especially when UCLA generally exceeded expectations by posting a winning record in a rebuilding season.

“We’ve done some good things and I hope that won’t be forgotten,” Toledo said. “We’ve got a running start into next year. We’ve got a lot of young football players who’ve played and a lot more who are redshirting.

“The team, the program, is really looking up. I think we have the chance to have an excellent team next year.”

The clock is still ticking on this year. Beating Washington State will be difficult, whether or not Cougar quarterback Jason Gesser has recovered sufficiently from a high ankle sprain to play.

Gesser, when sound, is one of the most dangerous playmakers in the nation. Backup quarterback Matt Kegel, 6-5 and 239 pounds, is a prototype drop-back passer in the Carson Palmer mold.

Manning and Ware, the cornerbacks, are considered a Bruin strong point, but they were burned by USC receivers. What can they do different today? As baseball players, they know the drill.

“It’s going to be another hyped-up game,” Ware said. “There’s a lot riding on it. We have to remember to play within ourselves. When you don’t, mistakes are made and they exploit it.”