UCLA FOOTBALL WATCH : AN INSIDE LOOK

Blaming the kicker: UCLA’s once-automatic kicker, Alfredo Velasco, has watched his season go up in flames as the Bruins have lost four consecutive games for the first time since 1971.

The events are not unrelated, Coach Terry Donahue said.

“If you want to see one little thread that has been intertwined with our demise, you’d have to point very, very emphatically to the failure of our kicking game,” Donahue said. “It has been catastrophic in almost every game.”

In UCLA’s last four games:

--Velasco pulled a 36-yard field-goal attempt wide to the left in the second quarter of a 42-7 loss to Arizona--his first miss inside 40 yards in 31 career attempts.

--He pushed a 40-yard first-quarter attempt wide to the right in the first quarter of an 18-17 loss to Oregon State.

--He pushed a 34-yard attempt wide to the right in the second quarter of a 28-27 loss to Washington.

--He had a 37-yard attempt blocked by Stanford’s Kevin Scott last week in the third quarter of a 17-14 loss to the Cardinal.

Velasco, successful on 20 of 24 field-goal attempts two seasons ago and 17 of 19 last season, has made only 11 of 17 this season.

As he walked off the field last Saturday at Stanford, Velasco told a reporter that he hasn’t lost confidence in himself, but the statistics don’t look that way.

Too Farr to go?: Mike Farr needs nine receptions in UCLA’s last two games to overtake Mike Sherrard as the Bruins’ all-time leader, but the senior split end from Birmingham, Mich., has averaged fewer than three receptions a game this season.