Donahue Sees Rebuilding Bruins as Challengers

Begging off specific questions about what went wrong, Coach Terry Donahue said Tuesday that it might take months to sort out the wreckage of UCLA’s worst football season in 18 years.

This week is too early.

“Things didn’t go right,” Donahue said. “So we’re in the process of taking that information and data and trying to systematically and unemotionally evaluate it and say, ‘What do we have to do to get this thing fixed again? What do we have to do to get this thing to fly right?’ ”

UCLA, ranked among the top 10 before its opener and picked to win the national championship by one major newspaper, Newsday, ended the season with a 3-7-1 record, its worst since 1971, and a six-game winless streak, its longest in 46 years.

The Bruins lost three games by a point and another by three points and probably should have beaten three teams that will play in bowl games--Michigan, Washington and USC. But they also absorbed their two worst conference losses of the decade, including a 42-7 pounding by Arizona.

Some have suggested that the Bruins simply were unfortunate, but Donahue said: “I don’t write off the season to bad luck.”

Still, the light at the end of the tunnel is not as dim as some might think, Donahue said.

“We’ll get back our respectability and get back to the position that we enjoyed previous to this season,” he said. “I think I can get the team and the program back to that (level) very, very quickly.”

Although he alluded throughout the season to a dropoff in talent among the Bruins, Donahue said: “I think there’s enough talent to get us back to where we were.”

So, what went wrong?

“Several things, none of which--at this point--I’m prepared to talk about,” Donahue said. “It was kind of a convergence of numerous factors that hit us all at one time.

“(But) I haven’t had adequate time to analyze and assess and to disengage myself from the season.”

With UCLA not playing in a bowl game for the first time since 1980, Donahue will spend the next several weeks meeting with his coaching staff, players and confidants and will spend the holidays at home with his wife, Andrea, and their three daughters, Nicole, Michele and Jennifer.

He does not expect UCLA’s disastrous season to affect its recruiting success, which has been on a par in recent years with Notre Dame’s, according to those who evaluate such things.

“Some people will negatively recruit and talk about our losing season,” he said. “But our performance over a long time and particularly through the ‘80s has been such that we still have an awful lot to sell and promote.”

He added that UCLA’s situation is not all that unique among college football powers this decade.

USC, for example, was 4-6-1 in 1983 and 6-6 in 1985. Alabama was 5-6 in 1984. Last season, Penn State was 5-6 and Ohio State 4-6-1. Even Notre Dame, unbeaten in its last 23 games and on the verge of its second straight national championship, was 5-6 only three seasons ago.

“Most football programs have experienced this kind of year--maybe not to the same extent, some maybe to a greater extent,” Donahue said. “They all seemed to have survived it and come back and done pretty well.

“My hope is that we will, too.”