Their Mission Is to Contain Bears’ Barr : College football: Goodwin and Greenwood fortify UCLA’s secondary going into tonight’s opener against Cal.

Marvin Goodwin misses the Philadelphia cheese steaks across the river from his home in Camden, N.J., and Carlton Gray and Othello Henderson from next door in the UCLA secondary.

With Carl Greenwood at cornerback, UCLA’s secondary was a constant on a team of injury-induced variables last season, starting all 11 games and giving up an average of 135.3 yards and less than a passing touchdown a game. It surrendered more than 200 yards passing only to Brigham Young, Cal and USC, and sent Gray and Henderson to the NFL.

Goodwin and Greenwood remain, hoping to become accustomed to cornerback Teddy Lawrence and safety Donovan Gallatin quickly enough tonight at the Rose Bowl to hold California quarterback Dave Barr in check in the teams’ season opener.

Goodwin makes the switch from strong to free safety.

“It’s a big difference,” said Goodwin, a junior. “I didn’t think the transition would be as rough as it has been.

“As the free safety, you have to slow down your game a lot. I’m used to strong safety, where you try to get a big play, make something happen for the defense. As free safety, you have to slow down and become a surer player because if you miss a tackle, it can be a touchdown for the offense.”

The difference is both physical and mental.

“I like strong safety a lot better,” Goodwin said. “It just suits my game. I like to go with my instincts a lot. Most of the time they’re right, but even if they’re wrong I have a field cornerback there to back me up if I make a mistake. As the free safety, I’m the only player on that side of the field, and if I make a mistake and leave a wide receiver open, it’s a touchdown.”

A season ago, Goodwin and Greenwood were a tandem, working together and feeding off each other as the strong safety and what UCLA calls the boundary corner--the cornerback who covers the side of the field closest to the sideline at the snap. Now, they are split, each working with a new partner: Goodwin with Lawrence, a sophomore who played only three downs in the secondary a year ago; and Greenwood with Gallatin, a senior who spent much of his time at linebacker in 1992.

“Carl and I are friends, and I knew he knew where he was going and how to get there,” Goodwin said. “We were able to work together to enhance our personal games, so that if a coach gave us a coverage, we could say, ‘This is how we’re going to do it.’

“It’s going to take a while to get comfortable with a new person, and it’s going to take one or two games to get to know each other. Scrimmages in practice are one thing, but it’s entirely different when there are different people on the other side of the ball and there are 50,000 people in the stands.”

Tonight, Goodwin and the Bruins will be looking over at Barr, who passed for 212 yards and three touchdowns as Cal defeated UCLA, 48-12, last season at Berkeley. It was Cal’s third victory in a row over the Bruins.

Two of those touchdown passes went to Sean Dawkins, who left the school early and became a first-round draft choice of the Indianapolis Colts. The other was a 52-yarder to Jeff Jones, who was signed as a free agent by the Kansas City Chiefs.

They leave behind a corps of receivers that includes Damien Semien, Mike Caldwell, Ihaenyi Uwaezuoke and Mike Clizbe.

“It’s tough because you don’t know what kind of offense they’re going to come at you with--what wide receivers, what routes,” Goodwin said. “It’s going to be difficult, at least for the first couple of series.”

And there will be some difficulty the entire game, as the new neighbors in the UCLA secondary become acquainted, but Goodwin says they will know more about each other Sunday than they knew Friday.

Now, if he can only find a good place for cheese steaks. . . .