Idle or Not, Bruins Are Still Driving

It’s a time to relax, said the coach, to savor seven victories in a row and a No. 10 ranking. To relish the most recent victory, UCLA’s 27-7 domination of Stanford, and a guaranteed bowl game.

“To laugh a little, to have a little fun,” Bob Toledo said. “I want them to enjoy this.”

Forget that, said the player, who is going to spend a week without a game the same way he has spent the weeks preparing for football Saturdays, and that doesn’t have anything to do with relaxation.

There is ample reason.

“Washington is the biggest game of my life,” free safety Shaun Williams said Monday of the Bruins’ next opponent, Nov. 15 in the Rose Bowl.

“This is my last year . . . and I’m just trying to make the best of it. Every practice, every rep I take I focus on the fact that this is my last chance to go to the Rose Bowl.”

Toledo wants to keep the week off in some sort of perspective, allowing a few players to heal and giving everybody more of a look at the Huskies.

He may be fighting a losing battle.

“There was a lot of talk about bowls in the locker room today, but it doesn’t mean anything unless we win out,” Williams said. “We’ve got to focus on Washington. We’ve got no shot at the Rose Bowl unless we beat Washington. It all boils down to beating Washington.”

That an intriguing consolation prize presented itself Monday had no effect. “If we lose this game to Washington, it doesn’t matter what we did against Stanford,” Williams said. “Every game gets tougher. If we lose to Washington, we’re off the road we’re going. The road is to the Rose Bowl.”

But it has a fork, and Dallas could be at one end.

Rick Baker, executive director of the Cotton Bowl, kind of likes the idea.

“They’re playing as good football as anybody in the country,” he said. “We had such a great experience with UCLA in 1989, with Troy Aikman.”

The Cotton’s other team is the Big 12 runner-up, and that fills half of what could be an intriguing equation.

How about UCLA against Texas A&M;?

Toledo against the man who fired him, R.C. Slocum?

Toledo was about to put a Life Saver in his mouth Monday when the idea was broached. The candy was launched from his lips as far as a Cade McNown pass.

“You’re kidding,” he said, then laughed incongruously. “Where’d you hear that?”

In Dallas, actually.

Texas A&M; is on a short Cotton Bowl list with Oklahoma State, assuming the winner of the South Division loses to Nebraska in the Big 12 championship game.

“If that happened, I’d have to read ‘he was fired’ stories all week,” said Toledo of a Bruin-A&M; game.

He obviously missed the journalism class that dealt with “and now he returns with a highly ranked team, a four-year, $1.72-million contract, one of the nation’s best offenses, local talent in Skip Hicks from Wichita Falls, Texas, and with an eye toward bestowing some of the 25 scholarships he has to give in this season’s recruiting class to some Lone Star talent.”

Oh, and “he’s back to face the coach who made him the scapegoat for three Cotton Bowl losses, for a game in the state that also has Texas and Houston, against both of which the Bruins scored 66 points.”

Said Baker, relishing the irony and promotional possibilities: “That would absolutely be interesting. R.C. is a supporter of the Cotton Bowl. Bob is a friend of the Cotton Bowl from his days at A&M.;

“Of course, it’s hard to be specific about this, but that’s an intriguing possibility.”

It’s one of the reasons that this part of the season is fun, bowls with conference ties notwithstanding.

All that has to happen from the Pac-10 side is for Arizona State to win out, gleaning the Fiesta Bowl bid from the bowl alliance; and Washington to beat Oregon, UCLA and Washington State to go to the Rose Bowl.

You can get pretty good odds all of that will occur.

It would help if Washington State also lost to Stanford on Nov. 15, though that probably isn’t essential given the fact that the Cougars dropped so far in the polls after Saturday’s loss to Arizona State.

Then there is the Sun Bowl, which takes the best of what’s left. “We like UCLA too,” said John Folmer, chairman of the Sun selection committee, although he conceded that the Sun wouldn’t be upset if Arizona State stumbled into El Paso because the Sun’s sponsor, Norwest, is a big bank in Arizona.

But all of these are possibilities for administrative minds.

Williams is a player, and he wants an extra home game in Pasadena on Jan. 1.

“I want it so bad I can taste it,” he said. “I know it’s still an outside possibility, but at least we have that chance. It’s discouraging that we haven’t been because it’s a dream I had when I came here.”

The Bruins last played in the Rose Bowl during Williams’ senior year at Crespi High.

But first there is Washington, and the rest of the possibilities will take care of themselves. Needing help from others is frustrating, but that’s the price UCLA pays for losing to Washington State, 37-34, way back on Aug. 30.

“You can’t live in the past, it’s always in your mind,” he said. “Any time you have a loss it hurts, but any time you play . . . and the game comes down to a couple of plays, that’s really going to hurt and you’re going to remember.”