ROSE BOWL / DAILY REPORT : WISCONSIN : Alvarez: UCLA’s Too Fast to Catch

Preparing for UCLA is unlike preparing for any team Wisconsin faced, Badger Coach Barry Alvarez said after putting his team through its first workout since arriving in Pasadena for Saturday’s 80th annual Rose Bowl game.

“No one we’ve seen compares with UCLA for team speed,” Alvarez said. “They just have different kind of athletes than the Big 10 has. They look like a bunch of thoroughbreds. There is no way we can simulate their speed in practice. They’re also more balanced than any team we met.

“I don’t mean to put down the Big Ten, but UCLA just doesn’t have pluggers like you see in our conference. You don’t see anyone getting big plays on their defense. It’s easy to see in studying the films, they’re running all over the place and they’re very quick to the ball.

“And on offense, we’ve not seen anyone like J.J. Stokes.”

So what is Alvarez planning to do to stop the Pac-10 champions?

“I don’t think we can stop them,” he said. “We’ll just try to slow them down a little, try to keep them off-balance.”

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Only one regular starter, outside linebacker Chad Yocum, is missing from the 95-player roster Wisconsin will suit up for the Rose Bowl game. Yocum, a two-year starter, played in the season’s first three games before cracking a vertebra in his back.

“Yocum was our best pass rusher,” Alvarez said. “We could use him, but we played seven games without him so we know what it’s like without him.” Yocum will arrive later in the week with about 20 other squad members who will not play but will be here for the game.

Tight end Matt Nyquist, who missed the last two games after breaking his ankle during practice before the Illinois game, is back and is expected to play. Nyquist, who backs up Michael Roan at tight end, caught only 10 passes but four of them were for touchdowns. He was a fullback before switching positions this season.

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After a week of makeshift workouts indoors in Madison, the ninth-ranked Badgers went through a stiff two-hour practice Sunday at Citrus College that included just about everything.

“I was pleased,” Alvarez said. “All in all, they looked sharp. We did a little hitting, we had a short scrimmage, we had some one-on-one drills and we worked on our kicking game.

“It was good getting two hours of work with everyone focused. Last week we had to work our practices around final exams and sometimes we had 10 or 12 guys missing. We tried to work around their schedules. We even had a couple of practices that didn’t start until 7 p.m.”

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Wisconsin has not fared well against Pac-10 teams, especially UCLA. The Badgers are 8-24 against the conference and 1-7 against the Bruins. Wisconsin won its first meeting against UCLA, 14-7, in 1938 and then lost seven in a row. Alvarez is 0-2 against the Pac-10, losing to California, 28-12, in his first game as head coach in 1990 and, 27-10, to Washington in the 1992 season opener.

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The nine victories this year are the most at Wisconsin in 93 years and the .864 winning percentage is highest since 1912. . . . Having a winning team brought out fans in record numbers as crowds at Camp Randall Stadium averaged 75,503 for five games. They also played before sellout crowds at Minnesota and against Michigan State in Tokyo.

Three Badgers have been invited to post-season all-star games. Offensive linesman Joe Panos will play in the Shrine and Senior Bowls. Nose guard Lamark Shackerford will play in the Hula Bowl and fullback Mark Montgomery has been invited to the Senior Bowl.