These Rams Manage to Win in Anaheim : Freedom: Earle Bruce’s Colorado State team gets a 32-31 victory when Oregon’s two-point conversion fails by inches.

They lifted Earle Bruce to their shoulders, victorious, as another, more famous team had three years ago.

Colorado State raised Bruce high Saturday night. A team that was 1-10 two years ago beat favored Oregon, 32-31, in the Freedom Bowl at Anaheim Stadium.

The Rams hadn’t been to a bowl since 1948, when they lost to Occidental in Fresno’s Raisin Bowl.

Saturday night’s victory wasn’t easy, and it never seemed sure or even likely until 1:01 remained and a two-point conversion attempt by Oregon barely failed.

Michael McClellan caught Bill Musgrave’s pass with his feet in the end zone, but the ball never crossed the plane of the goal line.

And then, in a reprise of the day when Ohio State’s players marched onto the field carrying their fired coach after a victory over Michigan in his final game with the Buckeyes, Colorado State celebrated.

“I gotta tell you, I’m just so proud of those young men,” Bruce said. “It’s unbelievable. It’s really unbelievable that they just won the Freedom Bowl. I’m so proud of them. They showed what hard work and a little bit of wanting can do.”

Colorado State’s victory before 41,450 came despite a spectacular effort by Musgrave, who passed for 392 yards and three touchdowns in his final game for Oregon, completing 29 of 47 passes without an interception. His best receiver Saturday night was McClellan, who caught nine passes for 148 yards in his first game after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery during the season.

But McClellan’s failure may live longest in the minds of Oregon fans hoping for the first back-to-back bowl victories in school history.

After closing the score to 32-31 on Sean Burwell’s one-yard run that capped a masterful drive by Musgrave, Oregon went for two points-after-touchdown.

“I would never kick an extra point in that situation, absolutely not,” Oregon Coach Rich Brooks said. “I like to win football games. It’s pretty simple. We didn’t come to a bowl game to tie. I’ve never gone for a tie in my life.”

The play worked to perfection--almost.

“The crowning blow was the two-point play,” Brooks said. “We didn’t run the route deep enough. We were about half a yard short of where we should have been to win the football game. I thought his feet were in. And the ball? I don’t know.”

The Ducks led at halftime, 17-14, but played a messy second half that included a botched handoff in the end zone for a Colorado State safety, two fumbles by tailback Burwell and a nullified punt after officials ruled that punter Tommy Thompson’s knee touched the ground as he fielded a snap.

“We gave you an exciting football game, by golly,” Brooks said. “Dropped balls, penalties, mistakes. You’ve got to give Colorado State credit. They took advantage of our mistakes. Unfortunately we played most uncharacteristic of the way we played all year.”

Colorada State cut the lead to 17-16 in the third quarter on a safety when Oregon’s Bud Bowie fell on the ball in the end zone after Musgrave and fullback Ngalu Kelemeni collided.

“It was a checkoff play that I’d called one way all game and called the other way,” Musgrave said. “We didn’t have good communication and we botched it up.”

Colorado State led, 19-17, after Mike Brown’s 35-yard field goal.

But Musgrave brought the Ducks back, 25-19, with a 44-yard touchdown pass play to McClellan, who duck-walked through the end zone. Musgrave hit Burwell for the two-point conversion.

Colorado State came back with a big play of its own, a 49-yard touchdown pass play to Greg Primus from Mike Gimenez, one of two platooning quarterbacks.

Colorado State added to that 26-25 lead with the most unlikely touchdown a of all, a 52-yard run by fullback Todd Yert, the Rams’ bulldozing, short-yardage specialist.

“I was running and I thought I gotta put on a move,” Yert said. “Usually fullbacks run straight ahead. It was now or never.”

That touchdown, with 4:59 left, gave Colorado State a 32-25 lead after the kick was blocked by Marcus Woods.

Then came the drama of Oregon’s final attempts to save itself.

The game had begun with a touchdown drive by Colorado State, as Verdugo took the Rams to a first down at the six, and then, his part done for the moment, gave way to Gimenez, who took the ball in on fourth down for a 7-0 lead.

Oregon drove right back up the field to tie the score on Musgrave’s pass to Anthony Jones, who scampered most of the final 10 yards of a 16-yard pass play.

Musgrave completed five of six passes on the drive, including several off his back foot. With the touchdown, Musgrave broke the 8,000-yard passing mark for his career, finishing at 8,343, the third best in Pac-10 history behind Stanford’s John Elway and Oregon State’s Erik Wilhelm.

Oregon took a 10-7 lead on a 23-yard field goal by Gregg McCallum. Then, just as it seemed the momentum was sliding Oregon’s way, Brian Brown fumbled a punt reception, and Colorado State’s Adolf Renaud pounced on it at the Oregon 33.

Soon after, Tony Alford’s one-yard run gave Colorado State the lead again at 14-10.

Musgrave went back to work, finishing with a seven-yard pass to a wide-open Burwell for a 17-14 lead with 23 seconds in the half.

That lead didn’t last, and Colorado State changed what has been the sorry history of Ram football.

“Earle Bruce made us believe in ourselves,” said linebacker Eric Tippeconnic. “We proved it now against a very worthy opponent.”