UCLA Faces Reeling BYU : College football: Surprising Bruins a tough order for Cougars, especially after disastrous season-opening rout by Air Force.

Having been coach of the Brigham Young University football team for 24 seasons, and having taken his team to bowl games in each of the last 17 years, Lavell Edwards knows the good times from the bad.

Last Saturday was not a good time.

Asked how big a disaster the Cougars’ 38-12 season-opening loss to Air Force was, Edwards said, “It was total.”

Coaches have been known to occasionally engage in hyperbole, but Edwards has the statistics to back up that statement.

Employing its wishbone offense to near perfection, Air Force ran up 523 yards in offense, 394 on the ground.

The Cougar ground game, meanwhile, was operating in reverse. BYU wound up with a minus-29 yards rushing.

The Cougars, who face UCLA today at Provo, Utah, did make some headway in the air. Quarterback Steve Sarkisian, making the leap from junior college football to the BYU starting lineup, completed 25 of 42 passes for 346 yards and two touchdowns. But, operating behind an offensive line with only one returning starter in left tackle James Johnson, Sarkisian also had his troubles, throwing two interceptions, fumbling once and getting sacked four times.

“He got a real baptism,” Edwards said. “Of course, he didn’t have anybody around him to help. Everything pretty much broke down around him. We had no running attack at all. That was the worst possible thing that could have happened to us, because then all the pressure is on the quarterback. It makes it very difficult when it’s the guy’s first outing.”

There were times at El Camino College in Torrance when Sarkisian didn’t seem to need any help.

He set school records last season by passing for 4,297 yards and 41 touchdowns. In one game alone, Sarkisian completed 42 of 67 for 645 yards.

Eager to test his talented arm at the next level, Sarkisian went to BYU, a school known for its quarterbacks. It was there that Steve Young, Jim McMahon, Ty Detmer and John Walsh perfected their trade.

And now Sarkisian is in Provo, making his home debut against 12th-ranked UCLA.

“Facing UCLA is not my idea of a good way to try to get things straightened out,” Edwards said. “Nevertheless, they are there. They are on the schedule and we have to go ahead and get ready to play them.”

And the Cougars will be facing a Bruin team that racked up 345 yards of its own in last week’s season-opening 31-8 victory over Miami, including 180 yards rushing by tailback Karim Abdul-Jabbar.

No fancy wishbone for UCLA. It’s just meat-and-potatoes football:

--Here’s Abdul-Jabbar.

--Here’s a big, veteran offensive line.

--Stop us.

Of course, it’s not as simple as that. It never is.

The Bruins also have a new starting quarterback in junior Ryan Fien, who certainly didn’t embarrass himself in last Saturday’s opener, but also didn’t have to do much.

Part of that was by design. Coach Terry Donahue is determined to ease Fien into the job.

And part of that was by circumstance. Fien completed 10 of 17 passes for 74 yards last week with no touchdowns and no interceptions. But he later revealed that he had played in a fog after the early part of the second quarter because of a concussion.

Fien sat out the first two days of practice this week, but now appears recovered.

“Ryan did absolutely what we wanted him to do,” Donahue said of the Miami game. “He didn’t have to win the game. There’s going to come a time, whether it be this week or two weeks from now, where he’s going to have to go win the game. We know that. That’s just football.”

It didn’t take Donahue long to go from basking in the glow of what he called a perfect opener to agonizing over a letdown this week.

“We were at a fever pitch last week,” he said. “We probably will not be at that pitch this week.

“But BYU can make your life miserable. I think we are going to see quite a different team this week. Obviously, their pride was hurt.”

Bruin Notes

The only questionable starter for UCLA is left cornerback Teddy Lawrence, who has a sore hamstring. If he can’t go, sophomore Javelin Guidry will replace him, teaming with his brother, Paul, who starts at right cornerback. . . . Bruin quarterback Ryan Fien, offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden and tight end Brian Richards have recovered sufficiently from the concussions they suffered a week ago to play today, but all will be monitored carefully and removed if any symptoms recur. . . . UCLA has beaten BYU in their last five meetings. The last time the teams met was at the Rose Bowl in 1993. UCLA won, 68-14, with Wayne Cook passing for four touchdowns.