Cal Hands Over Ball and a 36-10 Victory to Bruins

It was just like old times Saturday for UCLA, which still hasn’t lost to the University of California at any time in this century, or something like that.

Actually, it’s been only 15 years since the Bears defeated the Bruins in a football game, but who’s counting?

Someone must, so Coach Terry Donahue decided to make a small mental computation of the true meaning of UCLA’s 36-10 blitz of Cal in the matchup of the bear mascots.

“Streaks are hard to keep,” Donahue said.

However, it was apparent Saturday that Bears are not at all hard to beat. The secret seems to be letting them have the ball just long enough for them to blow it.

Cal has been committing turnovers at a dizzying rate this season and continued the trend against the Bruins, who turned two fumbles, a blocked punt and an interception into 23 points.

The Bruins’ victory, played out before a crowd of 59,000 in Memorial Stadium, must have been particularly demoralizing to the Cal players, who apparently impressed UCLA’s players more with their ability to talk than their ability to play.

Majett Whiteside, Cal’s starting nose tackle, was ejected in the first quarter when he threw a punch at Tory Pankopf. That was Mistake No. 1. He did it right in front of an official. That was Mistake No. 2.

After the game, Whiteside seemed contrite.

“There’s nothing I can do about it now,” he said. “What can I say?”

Cal linebacker Hardy Nickerson was hardly rendered speechless in the fourth quarter when he threw a tantrum on the field. Nickerson jerked off his helmet, charged an official and said a lot of things to a lot of people.

“He lost it totally,” UCLA safety Craig Rutledge said.

Not until three of Nickerson’s teammates grabbed him did he find it again.

What in the world had gotten into him?

“I thought . . . that there were some illegal acts,” he said. “I think they were trying to get me out of my game. I think that was their plan.”

As it turned out, Cal didn’t need much help in putting itself out of the game, although the rapidly improving Bruin defense certainly did its part once again.

The Bruins won the game in the first quarter, which ended with a 13-3 lead built on two David Franey field goals and a 68-yard touchdown pass play from Matt Stevens to Flipper Anderson.

Cal tipped its hand on how it would play the game on its first possession. The Bears ran four plays and fumbled.

UCLA cornerback Chuckie Miller jumped on the loose ball at the Cal 43, and Stevens took the Bruins to the 16 before consecutive incompletions brought on Franey to boot the first of his three field goals, a 33-yarder.

Cal was in the game only once more. After UCLA’s Darryl Henley fumbled a punt at the Bruin 16, Leland Rix kicked a 26-yard field goal to tie the score, 3-3.

That was pretty much it for Cal highlights. At the same time, there were a lot of Bruins busy putting the game out of reach in a hurry. It took Stevens only two plays after Rix’s field goal to give the Bruins a 10-3 lead.

Green rushed for 10 yards on first down, then Stevens found Anderson over the middle and got the ball to him just beyond four Cal tacklers. Anderson got past them all, stiff-arming cornerback Gary Hein at the 30 and outrunning the rest.

After a 44-yard field goal by Franey, his longest of the season, the Bruins were ahead, 13-3, soon to be 20-3 when their defense decided to take it upon itself to score. They even looked like the Raiders doing it.

It all began when Randy Beverly broke through to block a punt by Cal’s Scott Tabor. He picked up the ball and ran 8 yards to the Cal 10, where he was hit and fumbled the ball forward toward the goal.

Who would be there but Carnell Lake. He recovered the loose ball and ran it into the end zone.

“Our defense really did an outstanding job,” Donahue said. “Cal has had a tendency to turn the ball over and they did it today. Eventually, the game turned on a mistake.”

That didn’t come until the fourth quarter, after Cal followed a 24-yard Franey field goal in the third quarter with a 68-yard march that ended with a one-yard scoring plunge by freshman quarterback Troy Taylor.

The score was 23-10, and Cal was hanging in there until Taylor made the fourth-quarter mistake. He went back to pass at the Cal 47, but nose guard Terry Tumey was leaning on him when he threw.

Taylor shouldn’t have done that. Linebacker Billy Ray intercepted the pass and returned it 14 yards to set up another scoring pass from Stevens to Anderson, this one covering 18 yards and coming 4:59 into the quarter.

“I didn’t expect him to throw it,” Ray said. “It came right to me.”

Four plays later, Taylor got caught in another mistake by the Bruin defense.

Linebacker Eric Smith sacked Taylor and knocked the ball out of his hands 21 yards behind the line of scrimmage, where Lake recovered it at the Cal 21.

The Bruins ran three plays to a first-and-goal at the 6. James Primus then scored the touchdown that put the finishing touches on the victory.

While the UCLA defense made it look easy, the offense once again came up with some good numbers. The Bruins produced 421 yards of total offense, including 247 on the ground.

Green rushed for 134 yards in 21 carries even though he left the game on the last play of the third quarter after reinjuring his sore toe. Primus, who played both fullback and tailback, helped with 63 yards in 13 carries.

When he was still healthy, Green broke off the game’s nicest run with a 34-yard burst up the middle in which he cut back twice.

As sound as the UCLA running game was, so was Air Matt.

Stevens attempted only 15 passes, but he completed 9 for 174 yards and 2 touchdowns. He was intercepted once, but that shouldn’t have happened. The ball bounced off Karl Dorrell’s hands and was picked off by Darryl Stallworth.

Anderson caught three passes and two of them went all the way, finishing with 121 yards on his receptions.

But the Bruins know it is their defense that is carrying them.

“They are the backbone of our team right now,” Stevens said. “We got so many turnovers, the defense just kept giving the ball back to us.”

Nothing could save Cal from dropping to 1-5 overall and 1-3 in the Pacific 10 Conference. Stevens thought that the cumulative effect of such facts was the reason for Nickerson’s outburst.

“I can’t blame him for his attitude,” Stevens said. “He was just frustrated. There was a lot of talking going on out there, but he just got out of hand. All I know is that we’re coached not to say things like that, or Coach Donahue would take us out of the game.”

Saturday, Cal took itself out of the game against the Bruins, who are trying to suppress feelings of well-being right now.

Two weeks after losing to Arizona State in the Pac-10 opener, UCLA is 2-1 (4-2 overall) and flying.

As defensive tackle Frank Batchkoff said: “We’re playing hardball right now.”

Bruin Notes

Left cornerback Chuckie Miller was taken to a hospital for X-rays after the game because it was feared he had a broken rib. However, X-rays were negative, and Miller has only a sore rib . . . Free safety James Washington left the game with strained knee ligaments . . . Linebackers Greg Bolin and Ken Norton were forced out of the game briefly because of injuries, although both returned . . . Tight end Derek Tennell was not with the team because of the flu.