It’s All Up to Bruins Now : College football: Washington State, Arizona State and USC stand in the way of a berth in the Rose Bowl game.

Arizona’s defense didn’t play up to its reputation, but the offense did and suddenly UCLA is ranked 12th in the nation and envisions a home game on Jan. 1.

“It’s a game I’ve been watching since I was a kid,” quarterback Wayne Cook said Sunday, a day after the Bruins had beaten Arizona, 37-17, to put themselves in position to win their way into the Rose Bowl. “Nobody on this team has ever played in one. I sure would like to.”

Cliches flowed after the victory, the most frequent involving the future.

“We control our own destiny,” said safety Marvin Goodwin, who sacked Arizona’s Brady Batten late in the second quarter, then, on the next play, intercepted a Batten pass to set up UCLA’s second touchdown, a 14-yard pass from Cook to Kevin Jordan.

“We control our own destiny,” said Cook, who overthrew some receivers on deep routes in the first half, but went to J.J. Stokes for a 36-yard touchdown to give UCLA a 7-0 lead.

“It’s great that we don’t have to depend on anybody else to win.”

It’s left to UCLA, which is tied with 14th-ranked Arizona (7-1, 4-1) and USC (5-4, 4-1) atop the Pacific 10 Conference race and has games against Washington State, on Saturday, and Arizona State and USC to play. Three victories would produce a 9-2 record and a Rose Bowl berth.

“It’s a crusade,” Coach Terry Donahue said. “It’s three games, not six or eight. Three more times to go out and play with that as a goal.”

Each of the Bruins’ six consecutive victories has taught a lesson. “We find out something about our team each game, it seems,” Cook said. “There is so much we can do on offense. I wouldn’t sell our offense short on anybody. I really believe we have a total game. We ran better than any team has on Arizona this year. If we can do that, throw the ball, have some deep threats, I don’t see how any team can stop us.”

Arizona couldn’t. “They did a good job of getting the ball up and down the field,” Wildcat Coach Dick Tomey said. “We got whipped up front.”

That’s offensively and defensively. An Arizona team ranked first in the nation in running defense gave up 71 rushing yards, more when you consider two second-half sacks of Cook took away 16 yards. By then, UCLA led, 30-0, but there was lingering doubt.

That was settled when Nkosi Littleton intercepted a Ryan Hesson pass and returned it 64 yards for a touchdown and a 37-10 lead with 8:59 to play.

It was the last of five turnovers by Arizona. UCLA got points after all five.

The turnovers were caused by a Bruin defense that took Arizona’s reputation personally. “They felt we had played a more demanding schedule than Arizona and that if we had played their schedule, maybe they would have those statistics,” Donahue said.

And the turnovers helped a UCLA offense that was better prepared than the one that lost, 23-3, to Arizona a year ago.

“We attacked the defense more this year than we did last,” Donahue said. “We played more intelligently than a year ago. We didn’t attack it right (in 1992), to be frank with you. It was a new defense and we played early. This year we had a chance to study it.”