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Defensive Line Wants to Show Its Progress

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Times Staff Writer

No group wants to face Wyoming in the Dec. 23 Las Vegas Bowl more than UCLA’s defensive line.

After opening the season by getting ripped on the ground by Oklahoma State, the Bruin linemen are eager to show how far they’ve come in UCLA’s final game of the season.

“We’ve just been getting better every week,” said sophomore tackle Kevin Brown, who has had a strong second half of the season, leading the team with four sacks and standing second with 7.5 tackles for loss. He said that this season, “We got our feet wet.”

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Anchored by the play of junior C.J. Niusulu and Brown in the middle, UCLA’s defensive front has shown a marked improvement since September.

Ends Kyle Morgan, Brigham Harwell, Justin Hickman and Bruce Davis made more plays and the Bruins featured a pass rush against Oregon and USC.

“I’ve always felt that it wasn’t just us, but the whole unit that struggled early,” said Brown, who led all defensive linemen in tackles with 23. “It’s just a matter of the whole defense playing better, which in turn, makes everyone look better. Secondary, linebackers, everybody coming together as a unit.”

Brown credits defensive line coach Don Johnson’s approach for keeping things together when the Bruins’ line was criticized early in the season.

“With so many guys being new, they made things as simple as possible,” Brown said. “Next year we’ll do more things, but right now we’ve just improved on the things that we were doing.”

Coach Karl Dorrell said the difference has been health.

“Everyone’s back and playing pretty well right now,” he said. “They have a pretty good idea of how to play in our scheme, and we’re anticipating that type of improvement going into next week.”

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