UCLA FOOTBALL WATCH : AN INSIDE LOOK

Status quo: Don’t expect UCLA to make wholesale changes in its offense before Saturday’s game against USC at the Coliseum.

“It’s a real hard defense to move on,” Coach Terry Donahue said of a Trojan unit that ranks fourth in the nation, “but I’m not sure in four days you can come up with anything that’s going to have a dynamic impact. What you have to do is try to assess your own situation and see what you can do best and then kind of go in and do it.

“I’m not sure that we could do anything that 10 other teams haven’t tried. Football generally isn’t what what you do, but how you do it. That’s one of our biggest difficulties. We aren’t a football team that’s executing very well.”

Stack ‘em up: One thing that will change this week, according to several Bruin seniors, is the coaching staff’s approach to practice.

“It’s more like a full scrimmage,” linebacker Craig Davis said of past UCLA workouts in the week before the USC game. “Normally, you’re not supposed to take a back to the ground. You’re supposed to hold him up. During the week of the SC game, if you smash somebody, that’s a good thing. If there’s a pile of bodies, that’s good.”

Student-athlete: Offensive lineman Rick Meyer, a biology major, has been nominated for an NCAA postgraduate scholarship and academic All-American.

Closing in: Kirk Maggio remains second in the nation with an average of 45.66 yards per punt after averaging 49.3 yards in three punts last Saturday against Oregon. Colorado’s Tom Rouen leads the nation with an average of 46.09 yards.