Bruins’ Play-Calling Keeps Trojans on Run

UCLA quarterback Wayne Cook is quicker and more mobile than USC quarterback Rob Johnson. And Bruin Coach Terry Donahue’s offense was more daring as well as more creative than Trojan Coach John Robinson’s.

And the result Saturday was a six-point decision for UCLA, 27-21, in a game that was won in the last minute but decided earlier when imaginative play selection enabled the Bruins to run for 230 yards against a Trojan team that could run for only seven yards, net, in 60 minutes.

The Bruins kept the Trojan defense off balance with frequent shotgun formation plays on first and second down--some runs and some passes--and with fake-pitchout passes, fake-pass runs, and a massive assortment of other such calls.

UCLA’s decisive third-quarter touchdown, for instance, the one that increased its lead to 24-14, came on second and eight with a clever 17-yard play out of the shotgun formation.

The play began with a fake handoff to Bruin halfback Skip Hicks heading to his left, and, after Cook rolled right, he went to 6-foot-5 J.J. Stokes in the end zone.

With a daylong package of such surprises, the Bruins, when they ran the ball, were able to astonish the Trojans, running through some of the largest holes that any Coliseum crowd has recently seen.

The Bruin line blocks effectively. And the Bruin runners, Ricky Davis and Hicks, are considerably above the average for a college team. But it was Bruin play selection that made it all go so smoothly.

When UCLA offensive coordinator Homer Smith sent down the signals, the USC defense usually had no idea what was about to happen.

Even so, Robinson, in his first year back from the pros, came within three yards of the Rose Bowl with a cast of players who didn’t seem as gifted as Donahue’s.

If the Trojans were outplayed, it wasn’t by much.

In all, however, the ingredients of victory for UCLA were a better game plan, a better quarterback, and, overall, better players.

It still seems inconceivable that the Bruins should have lost their first two games this season with this gang--with halfbacks such as Davis and Hicks, with the Cook-to-Stokes combination, with linebackers such as Jamir Miller and Donnie Edwards, and with, among others, the gifted big men they have in both lines.

Johnson showed more talent for the pass than Cook, particularly when he wasn’t hurried. The Trojans’ three big second-half plays all featured USC’s pass-blockers at their finest. In order, these plays were Johnson to Ken Grace, 52 yards--setting up a touchdown--and Johnson’s two scoring passes.

No UCLA player approached the Trojan quarterback on those throws.

The Bruins knew about Johnson the passer, but they had something new for him. The UCLA nickel safety, Donovan Gallatin, who had only three sacks in the first 10 games of the season, had three more as the Trojans fell behind, 17-0.

In the end, that proved enough, because the Trojans couldn’t think of anything interesting to do in the last minute with a first down on the UCLA three-yard line.

There, although their backs hadn’t been able to budge the Bruin line in the first 59 minutes, the Trojans called running plays on first and second down and failed to budge UCLA again.

Then on the predictable third-down pass, Johnson threw into triple-coverage. When that one was intercepted, Donahue had made some history, beating the Trojans, at last, with the Rose Bowl on the line.