Donahue’s Push Moves Alexander : Bruins: Running back rises from the bottom of depth chart, rushing for 227 yards against Oregon State.

The next floor down on the UCLA depth chart for tailback Chris Alexander was the local community college of his choice.

His act had grown tiresome. In theory he was a college student, but dogs were still eating his homework and Bart Simpson seemed to be guiding his academic future.

Last summer, UCLA Coach Terry Donahue mentally scratched Alexander from the 1992 roster. “He basically was telling me to take a year off, to go down to a JC and get some development,” Alexander said.

What do coaches know?

“I was absolutely, positively not going to do that,” he said. “I knew what I had to do.”

Alexander somehow got his grades in order, kept his mouth shut, took a number on the bench behind talented runners Kevin Williams, Daron Washington, Sharmon Shah and Kaleaph Carter, then waited for a miracle.

He got a taste of the backfield last week when he rushed for 104 yards in a relief role against Cal.

Saturday night, during UCLA’s 26-14 victory over Oregon State at the Rose Bowl, Alexander shocked teammates and himself when he rushed for 227 yards in 35 carries.

Only three backs in UCLA history have rushed for more yards in a game.

“I’m in a state of blankness, because I really can’t believe it,” Alexander.

Nor could anyone else.

Alexander had never rushed for 200 yards in a game, not even at Hawthorne High, where he was a football and track star and a teammate of USC’s Curtis Conway.

Alexander was not considered as an option this season. In fact, he was academically ineligible for UCLA’s first two games while he waited for summer school grades to be posted.

Donahue took him aside and read him the riot act.

“I believe in giving young people second and third chances if warranted,” Donahue said, delicately describing his conversation. “But Chris got to the point where he exhausted all his second chances. It got to the point where he needed to adhere to the policies of the program or leave the program. He made the decision to get his academic life in order.”

The football pecking order would be another matter.

“He (Donahue) told me, ‘When you come back, you’re going to be down at the bottom, you’ll have to work your way up,’ ” Alexander said.

In the week before the San Diego State game, Sept. 26, Alexander was on the scout team imitating the Aztecs’ Marshall Faulk.

For that game, the three UCLA backs totaled 278 yards. One, Shah, was a freshman. The other, Washington, was a sophomore.

Alexander, also a sophomore, might have seen his college career flash before him.

“That’s not me,” he said. “I didn’t get down, I kept working hard. I knew there’d eventually be a little crack in the seam, you have to take advantage of it. It was just a matter of time.”

Injuries to Williams and Carter provided the chance. Alexander also got a break when Donahue was forced to go with a one-back formation to preserve what healthy backs he had remaining.

Alexander said the one-back formation better suits his running style and sprinter’s speed. On his 62-yard touchdown run with 1:38 to play, Alexander burrowed into the line, found it congested, then bounced the play outside and took off down the right sideline.

Alexander credits Donahue with providing the incentive.

“It took a little threat to me--I took it as a threat--to finally realize what was going on,” Alexander said.

And the Donahue reprimand?

“To a young man like myself, it needs to happen,” Alexander said. “I needed it to boost me up.”

Wait until he tells the kids in class.