Hicks Joins Himself in Record Book

The three touchdowns scored by Skip Hicks on Saturday give him 20 for the season, matching the UCLA school record he set a year ago.

Hicks has 49 touchdowns for his career, four behind the Pacific 10 Conference record of 53 set by Charles White at USC.

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The Bruins’ seven-game winning streak matches their longest of the ‘90s. The last time UCLA won eight in a row was in 1987.

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Stanford’s loss was its third in a row, the first time that has happened under Coach Tyrone Willingham.

The last time the Cardinal lost four in a row was in 1994 when it lost to Arizona, Notre Dame, Arizona State and USC.

The last time Stanford had negative rushing in a game was against California in 1993, when Stanford finished with a minus-five total in a 46-17 loss.

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After stumbling around all season when the other team was kicking off, UCLA switched its return tandem for Saturday’s game and got immediate results.

Keith Brown, who returned kicks last season but had been supplanted by Jermaine Lewis for the first seven games of 1997, brought back the opening kickoff 35 yards, perhaps not overwhelming but 10 yards longer than the previous longest Bruin kick return.

Brown was joined by Hicks as the deep men on the return team.

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When Jim McElroy twisted his ankle running a pass pattern in the first quarter, UCLA’s punt-returning chores were left to Eric Scott.

He returned five for 67 yards, immediately establishing himself as the UCLA season leader.

McElroy had taken eight punts 40 yards and walk-on Mark Reynosa had seven returns for 51 yards.

Scott also had the longest runback of the season, 44 yards.

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After missing two field goal tries a week ago, UCLA’s Chris Sailer was back on target with kicks from 25 and 26 yards. . . . Bruin quarterback Cade McNown completed 15 passes, giving him 440 for his career, one behind UCLA leader Tom Ramsey.