Everything’s Ducky for UCLA : Bruins Rally in Second Half as USC’s Rose Bowl Bid Ends : College football: Donahue’s team comes on strong for unprecedented fourth victory in a row over Trojans, 31-19.

Rich Brooks and Terry Donahue, coaching kindred spirits, talked on the telephone last week as they always do, but with a different close than usual. It was an admonition.

“He told me, ‘If I screw it up, don’t you,’ ” Donahue said.

Neither did.

UCLA tried to for a half before getting its offense on track in the third quarter Saturday. The Bruins then rode out the fourth and handed Donahue his fourth consecutive victory over USC, 31-19, in the Rose Bowl.

Oregon had already defeated Oregon State, 17-13, clinching a Rose Bowl berth for Brooks’ team against Penn State. At day’s end, USC’s postseason picture had clouded.

The Sugar Bowl was not as sweet on the Trojans, who are 7-3 overall and 6-2 in the Pacific 10 Conference with Notre Dame still to play.

It had all seemed under control. USC led at halftime, 12-3, with John Herpin’s interception in the end zone turning back UCLA’s best bid for a touchdown and canceling a major USC mistake. On the play after a Bruin fumble, Rob Johnson had connected with Keyshawn Johnson on a 29-yard touchdown pass play.

It was the sort of thing that humbled UCLA (5-6, 3-5) this season, and some angry Bruins huddled after two quarters.

“We were upset,” Donahue said. “We screwed it up because we couldn’t get those points. We kick a field goal, then take off those points (because of a roughing-the-kicker penalty) and don’t score because we threw an interception. . . . We shouldn’t have been down 12-3. We felt like we had been betrayed.

“Then, about one minute before we went out, the coaches, we talked. We said, ‘We’ve got to get ourselves together and got to get this team together. We can win this game, but we can’t be upset.’

“The key was the first drive in the second half. Once we did that, the game was on.”

Six plays covered 65 yards, with a Wayne Cook-to-J.J. Stokes pass covering the final 10 to cut USC’s lead to 12-10.

The play went over USC’s Mario Bradley, who was alone with Stokes. It was a mistake the Trojans did not repeat.

“From then on, every time I looked at J.J. he was double-covered,” Cook said. “That took some guys out of the middle of the field. You can cut off the run or cut off the pass, but you can’t do both.”

UCLA tried. The Bruin defense sacked USC’s Rob Johnson six times for losses totaling 43 yards, forced him to fumble once and intercepted two of his passes, one inside the 20-yard line, aborting a Trojan rally.

“We let Rob Johnson get sacked too many times,” USC Coach John Robinson said. “And we made some errors in the third quarter that became disastrous.”

A series of them led to the Bruins taking a 17-12 lead. Backed up on his 12 after a 49-yard punt by Darren Schager, Johnson was hit hard by Phillip Ward, losing 11 yards on first down.

Leonard Green got two yards of breathing space, and Johnson faded to pass, looking for Ed Hervey over the middle. Paul Guidry was there, deflecting the ball to Abdul McCullough, whose diving interception came on the USC 33.

After Sharmon Shah lost a yard, Cook passed to Stokes for 29. Shah’s five-yard touchdown run put the Bruins in front for good. He finished the day with 135 yards in 25 carries.

The lead became less tenuous on UCLA’s next possession, which followed a series in which Johnson was sacked twice.

“UCLA played carefree and loose,” Johnson said.

“No,” said UCLA nose guard George Kase, “we played Bruin defense, the way we should have played all season--turned up a notch.”

Whatever, some of the pressure on the defense was alleviated when Bruin freshman Jim McElroy scored his first touchdown, on a 30-yard pass by Cook over Herpin for a 24-12 lead.

USC answered with 74-yard drive, most of the work being done by Green. Seven of the eight plays were runs by Green, with Johnson’s pass to Hervey for eight yards providing the only novelty.

“I was surprised,” Bruin defensive coordinator Bob Field said. “They had been passing, so I thought they would pass more.”

They had been getting sacked, so the Trojans decided to run.

“I was scared,” Donahue said.

USC had cut the Bruin lead to 24-19 and, in 27 of these USC-UCLA games, Donahue had seen some strange things happen. “But the important thing is that we came back and ran the ball down their throats,” he said. “That made it easier for me.”

Shah did most of the running. Seven times he went into the Trojan line for 35 yards, eating yardage and, more important, time. Twice he was stopped for no gain within a yard of the goal line, which actually helped in that the clock continued, cutting off time for USC to retaliate.

Cook sneaked over for a 31-19 lead with 8:22 to play.

With little to worry about from the running game, given the time, UCLA’s defense went after Johnson as though on a mission. Ward sacked him on first down. He answered with a 20-yard pass to Keyshawn Johnson.

Travis Kirschke sacked Johnson, so he answered with yet another long completion, 34 yards to Keyshawn Johnson on fourth down.

Johnson and Johnson combined 11 times for 175 yards, and there was an attempt at a 12th, on second down from the UCLA 13. Scrambling to buy time, Rob Johnson located his favorite target, but didn’t see Bruin cornerback Teddy Lawrence, who intercepted in the end zone with 3:11 to play.

“I thought, ‘Game is over. Redeemed,’ ” said Lawrence, who was victimized in the closing moments of last year’s game, which was won only when Marvin Goodwin intercepted a Johnson pass, also in the end zone.

Lawrence was right. The game was over, and the Bruin fans among the 91,815 present struck up a chant: “Four more years, four more years.”

It was music to Donahue’s ears.

“We lost four in a row to them early in my career and people wanted to string me up,” he said. “To have won four in a row feels great.”

To finally catch up, a 9-9-1 record against the Trojans, feels greater. It gave the Bruins a three-game winning streak to end their season at 5-6, and Cook saw the irony.

“The game was just like the season--a struggle at first, then strong at the end,” he said.

It was more than that. It was a dominating performance for a much-maligned defense. The Trojans were limited to 57 yards rushing, an aspect of their game that put increased pressure on Johnson. He passed for 246 yards, but spent much of the game scrambling for his life, the target of a defense that sent pass rushers from all directions, sometimes at once.

“They played better and deserved to win,” Robinson said. “As for our team, I was worried about them being tired. Our football team gave us everything we asked for. They just came up short.”

Fatigue was in part a product of playing Washington State, Arizona and UCLA on consecutive weekends. It gets no easier.

“Now our season depends on Notre Dame next week,” Robinson said.

So does the Trojan postseason.

* SHARMON SHAH: He rushes for 135 yards and the go-ahead touchdown to spark Bruins. C10

* UNDER PRESSURE: Bruin defense makes it a long day for Trojan quarterback Rob Johnson. C10

* MISSING INGREDIENTS: The Trojan pass rush and emotion come up short against UCLA. C11