Bruins Are Given Another Reason to Point for Trojans

The sobering news from Las Vegas hit Mike Lodish “like a kick in the face,” the UCLA defensive tackle said Monday.

USC was installed as a 17-point favorite over UCLA for Saturday’s game at the Coliseum.

UCLA hasn’t been considered such a longshot since 1983, when it was a 17 1/2-point underdog before losing to Nebraska, 42-10.

Even 10 years ago, when they endured their only other losing season under Coach Terry Donahue and went against a USC team that included Heisman Trophy winners-to-be Charles White and Marcus Allen, the Bruins were only 14 1/2-point underdogs before losing, 49-14.

The latest betting line, Lodish said, “shows disrespect for a program that has done so well in the last seven or eight years.”

Of course, a 3-7 record and a five-game losing streak, the Bruins’ longest in one season since 1963, aren’t exactly shining lights.

The oddsmakers’ low opinion of the Bruins, Lodish said, could serve as a motivating factor for the Bruins against a Trojan team that is 8-2 and ranked eighth, has the nation’s No. 1 rushing defense and has clinched a third consecutive trip to the Rose Bowl game.

“It bothered me, yet at the same time it might help us,” Lodish said of the point spread. “If we can stick (the Trojans) hard in the beginning and really press them, that would be the only chance we would have of beating them.”

A victory over USC, Lodish said, would make the Bruins’ season.

Said Mike Farr, the Bruins’ senior split end: “I’m not going to say it would make our season, but it would take away some of the pain we’ve felt in the last six weeks.”

Both Lodish and Farr, who came to UCLA four years ago after playing together at Brother Rice High School in Birmingham, Mich., said that the prospect of a Bruin upset this week is not as outlandish as some might think.

“They’re a great team,” Lodish said of the Trojans. “There’s really nothing you can say against the Trojans. They’re very intense players--their defense is outstanding. But they’re beatable.

“You just have to keep hammering them and coming at them.”

Tenacity, of course, is an intangible the Bruins have lacked.

Their starting quarterback, Bret Johnson, hasn’t led a second-half touchdown drive in their last six games and the Bruin defense has faltered more often than not after halftime, allowing Oregon State and Washington to mount long drives to game-winning scores.

Michigan, Stanford and Oregon also overtook the Bruins after halftime. Last Saturday at the Rose Bowl, Oregon outscored UCLA in the second half, 24-0.

“Sometimes in the second half we tend to--not fold--but we aren’t as solid,” Lodish said.

The season, obviously, hasn’t unfolded as planned.

“The expectations we had were that we were going to be a contender for the Rose Bowl and that it was going to come down to the USC-UCLA game again,” Lodish said. “We thought we had every chance in the world to go undefeated until this game.”

It didn’t happen, but a victory over the Trojans, Lodish said, would at least take some of the sting out of what could be the Bruins’ losingest season since 1963.

“We would be the only Pac-10 team to beat them,” he said. “Considering our record, that would be quite an accomplishment.”

Quite an upset, too.

Johnson has been pulled from three of the Bruins’ last four games, but asked if the redshirt freshman will start again this week, Donahue said: “I’m anticipating right now that he will.”

Will Jim Bonds play?

“It depends how the game goes, but I would say that we wouldn’t hesitate to use him,” Donahue said.

Last week, Donahue said that Johnson and Bonds would share time in the Bruins’ last two games, but Bonds didn’t play against Oregon until the fourth quarter--after the Ducks converted two third-quarter interceptions by Johnson into touchdowns and a 28-20 lead.

Linebacker Craig Davis, asked if the Bruins would attempt to intimidate USC’s redshirt freshman quarterback, Todd Marinovich: “He’s not going to be too intimidated by a team that’s 3-7.”

Bruin Notes

Freshman cornerback Carlton Gray said Monday that, after returning home to Cincinnati for a week after the USC game, he will join the UCLA basketball team. Gray, a 6-foot-2 point guard, was a high school All-American last season at Cincinnati’s Forest Park High School. . . . Senior split end Mike Farr, asked if the shuffling of quarterbacks has divided the team into Bret Johnson and Jim Bonds camps, said: “I’m sure some players have their own preferences about it.”

Describing USC’s defense as fabulous, Coach Terry Donahue said: “Over the years, I’ve seen them have some really good defensive teams, but I’m not sure this isn’t as good as any defensive team I’ve seen.” . . . Donahue, on USC linebacker Junior Seau: “I’m not sure anybody in the league plays any harder than he does. He’s become a dominant player.”