UCLA Is Hoping to Erase Bad Memories of Arizona : College football: Bruins ‘got beat up’ by Wildcats last year in Tucson. Tonight’s game is key to Rose Bowl race.

It was a little over a year ago, Sept. 21, to be exact, and crisis conditions existed on the second floor of McKale Center in Tucson.

Players trooped in and out of Dick Tomey’s office, 68 in 17 hours, each talking individually to the coach, who spoke softly and told them that Arizona was a better football team than it had showed in a 14-14 tie against Oregon State at Corvallis, two days before.

“He just said he wanted more out of every player,” said nose guard Rob Waldrop, whose “more” made him an All-American. “He said we could have a highly successful season. Ever since that point, we have worked together.”

And the Wildcats have won. It didn’t start immediately, but an 8-7 defeat in which they held Miami to two yards rushing six days later was accorded victory status in many minds. A week after that, UCLA was beaten, 23-3. The Bruins came away without linebacker Arnold Ale, sidelined for the season because of a broken leg; wide receiver Sean LaChapelle, whose rib injury hampered his play for the rest of the year, and linebackers Bradley Craig and Shane Jasper, who missed games.

UCLA must deal with the Wildcats again tonight at the Rose Bowl in a game that has Pacific 10 Conference championship ramifications. The 15th-ranked Bruins, 5-2 overall and 3-1 in the Pac-10, have respect for seventh-ranked Arizona (7-0, 4-0). They should.

“We got beat up,” said quarterback Wayne Cook, who watched from the stands, still on crutches from an earlier knee injury that had knocked him out for the season. “Poor Rob (Walker, the Bruins’ No. 2 quarterback now) got killed. From that point, we were down. We had injuries. We never were at full force again.”

The Bruins were 3-0 and ranked 11th when they went into Tucson, 19th and sinking like a stone after they left.

The one-on-one sessions Tomey had had with his players had been a catharsis.

“I came away from those meetings feeling a lot better myself,” he said. “I don’t know if the players felt better, but I did.”

Most of the defensive players who met with Tomey that day still have the feel-good attitude and reflect it in their play. They are giving up only 15.1 yards rushing per game, inflated by the 68 yards Washington State accumulated last Saturday. It works out to 17.2 inches per rush, an astonishing statistic that, if maintained, would be an NCAA record.

“Arizona plays with great intensity, unity and spirit,” said UCLA offensive coordinator Homer Smith, Tomey’s boss at Davidson College in 1965 and ’66. “They have an ingenious way of lining up that allows them to stay with the offensive flow better than most defenses. It’s difficult to play against it because we don’t play against anything like it. We could not respect it more.”

It has been Smith’s job, and that of the other offensive coaches, to devise a plan to deal with Waldrop, Tedy Bruschi and the rest of a defense that has sacked quarterbacks 36 times while playing what Tomey calls “a conservative, uncomplicated scheme.”

“No one dictates to them, no one,” Smith said. “They line up like they’re going to line up, and no one dictates to them. We know it will be a struggle.”

It will be one with lingering, but not lasting, impact.

UCLA and Arizona are the only teams in the Pac-10 in control of their own Rose Bowl destiny, but that destiny has three more weeks to be realized.

“It will be a very important game,” Coach Terry Donahue said. “I think some people are trying to make it the end of the season. I wish in some ways it was. I wish this was the championship game and we were playing for the Rose Bowl and all that. We are playing for first place, but I think every team in the conference has a long month ahead.”

Arizona’s month includes games against Oregon, California and Arizona State. UCLA’s includes meetings with Washington State, Arizona State and USC.

Tonight’s game could hinge on the Wildcats stopping the UCLA passing game, in which Cook and J.J. Stokes have combined for 13 touchdowns, 11 in the last four games.

“We’re trying to beat UCLA,” Tomey said. “We’re not trying to beat J.J. Stokes. We just need to keep him from taking over the game.”

Stokes took over UCLA’s 39-25 victory over Washington, catching four touchdown passes and helping the Bruins overcome a 15-0 deficit.

The UCLA passing game has helped loosen defenses to allow the Bruins to run effectively. They are nearly 50-50 in rushing and passing yardage, “probably the best balance of any team we’ve faced this season,” Tomey said.

Arizona’s beleaguered offense has struggled, though, with rushing dominating the statistics and quarterback Dan White--Stokes’ teammate at San Diego Point Loma High--drawing criticism, although his seven touchdown passes are one more than any quarterback in Tomey’s eight seasons in Tucson.

The Wildcats’ best running back, Chuck Levy, has missed three games because of injuries, including a 9-6 victory over Washington State last Saturday. He returns tonight as Arizona’s sixth-leading back in all-purpose yards with 3,272 and has played some option quarterback in goal-line situations.

The Wildcats have turned the ball over 20 times and received 20 turnovers. UCLA has been much better in that area.

“They’re plus 17 in turnovers (with 10, to the opponents’ 27) and that’s amazing,” Tomey said of the Bruins. “It’s partly responsible for their success.”

It’s success that has paralleled Arizona’s of a season ago. The Bruins lost their opener to California, then had a week off to regroup. The next game was a 14-13 loss to Nebraska. UCLA has not lost since.

“I think they’ve done a marvelous job of getting their season turned around,” Tomey said. “They’ve gone through some of the same things as we went through a year ago, and I know from personal experience that gives a team a strong resolve and a real strong belief in themselves.”