Opponents’ Big Plays a Concern

What’s a big play?

“We think it’s 20 yards or more,” Coach Bob Toledo said Thursday. “And the longer it gets, the bigger it is.”

The Bruins’ mission Saturday at Washington State will be to reduce the number of big plays that hurt them in a 5-6 season in 1996, when they gave up 47 of them.

“We need to cut that down considerably defensively, and offensively, we need to continue to make them,” Toledo says. “More important, we need to make the routine plays. That was our biggest problem early in the year: the routine plays.”

To help that defensively, UCLA will use a two-deep rotation up front, with Darren Cline, Damon Smith and Weldon Forde starting, and Pete Holland, Micah Webb and Jayson Brown backing them up.

The Bruins hope to rotate that line every three plays.

“They will get a lot of opportunities and a lot of rest,” Toledo said. “They know they are going to be in there only three plays and they can play hard for those three plays.”