UCLA Defense Expecting Unexpected at Arizona

Rocky Long is learning how the other half lives.

Long, UCLA’s defensive coordinator, spent five seasons at Oregon State, where opposing coaches would go away muttering--usually victorious, but still muttering--about teams that run oddball offenses with unusually talented players. Ten games against teams with look-alike, if not play-alike, offenses, but always there had to be another plan for Oregon State and its run-everywhere wishbone.

Long was the defensive coordinator at Oregon State, smiling slyly because he didn’t have to worry about running quarterbacks and option plays.

Today he does.

Long has spent the week designing a defense to deal with Wildcat freshman quarterback Keith Smith, and the results of his effort will be known later today at Arizona Stadium.

“He’s worrisome,” Long said. “The one person who is hardest to defense is a player who can do something of everything. Keith Smith likes to change things as he goes along.”

Smith is the Pacific 10 Conference’s top percentage passer, having completed 62.7% of his 158 throws for 1,222 yards and 10 touchdowns. He is Arizona’s leading rusher with 537 yards in 106 carries, eighth overall in the Pac-10 and the only quarterback in the top 10.

At 5 feet 10, he’s a valley between mountainous Ryan Leaf, the 6-6 quarterback whom the Bruins (4-5, 3-3 in the Pac-10) had little problem with in beating Washington State, and Brad Otten, the 6-5 leader at USC.

Running is anathema to both.

But Smith’s speed is enough to keep Long up nights, and the Arizona offense, designed by former UCLA offensive coordinator Homer Smith, hasn’t helped.

“You have to be careful with the blitzes and stunts you use because if you get caught too far upfield, he can run right past you,” Long said.

Smith has done just that, running 73 yards for a touchdown against Illinois, twice for scores on 19-yard runs against Washington State, and for a 42-yard jaunt that did not end in the end zone but scared USC.

So the answer is a different defense. But Smith was kind of wondering about the UCLA defense anyway.

“I’ve watched film of it,” he said. “It’s crazy. They come at you from everywhere. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He might not see anything like it today, either. A defense that has used reckless abandon, with blitzes and stunts, for nine games might well be reined in to contain Smith.

“You have to stay balanced against him,” Long said.

The Bruins have overloaded points of the defense to create mismatches and confusion, but today such a defense could find itself overmatched by a quarterback who simply runs away from trouble.

“But you can blitz him,” Long insisted. “Other people have.”

And the Bruins will. They have to for their defense to work.

The lot of the UCLA offense is another story.

Once, Arizona (4-5, 2-4) had the “Desert Swarm” defense, famous in song, fable and opposing offense’s team meetings.

Particularly those opposing teams that like to run, as UCLA does.

The Wildcats had the kind of team that threw Stanford for rushing losses totaling 33 yards in 1992, and allowed gains only in the teens against Miami and other powerhouses earlier in the ‘90s.

But a week after Arizona lost, 55-54, to Cal, Oregon, with one of the poorest rushing offenses in the Pac-10, ran for 310 yards against the Wildcats, 223 of them by Saladin McCullough, who scored five touchdowns in a 49-31 Duck victory.

Arizona Coach Dick Tomey came away from Eugene angry.

“Defensively, the last two weeks have been a nightmare for us,” said Tomey, whose team is 4-0 at home but 0-5 on the road. “We’ve been a very outstanding defensive team for the better part of five years, and just in the last two weeks we’ve allowed more points than we did in the previous seven games.

“I’m sure some of it is, we’re playing better offensive teams the last two weeks. But you know, obviously, we haven’t made plays and we’ve lost our poise a little bit when the ball is starting to move. We’ve just not played well.”

Tomey is working to reverse the recent trend.

“This is a big game for us because we laid an egg last week,” he said. “I don’t think we felt good about our performance, and you always look forward to the next one. I think UCLA has made as much improvement during the course of the season as anyone in the league and probably played its best football game last weekend.”

That was against Washington State in a 38-14 victory. But that was in the Rose Bowl and today is homecoming in Tucson.

And a trial for Rocky Long.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

UCLA at ARIZONA

* Time: 12:30

* TV: Channel 7

* Radio: XTRA (690)

* Records:

UCLA 4-5, 3-3

Arizona, 4-5, 2-4