UCLA Finds Beauty in a Flawed Win

Larry Atkins went shopping Saturday and got one of just about everything.

And a couple of sacks.

Cade McNown went out and got a record.

UCLA picked up a 34-10 victory over Oregon State. Bob Toledo might not show the game video at a coaching clinic, but he would be willing to hang the Rose Bowl scoreboard in the Louvre.

“Whether you win 2-0 or 34-10, it really doesn’t matter,” said Toledo, the Bruin coach who was celebrating his first five-game winning streak. “There’s no such thing as an ugly win. It was beautiful. It was a beautiful victory, that was, OK? Any time you win, it’s good.”

It was a game in which there was really little doubt about the outcome, but one that offered 17th-ranked UCLA (5-2, 3-1 in the Pacific 10) little time in a comfort zone, at least until the second half.

Oregon State rolled downfield to a 28-yard field goal on its first series, and the Bruins responded with three consecutive incomplete passes.

Three incomplete Beaver passes, and UCLA answered with Jermaine Lewis fumbling a punt.

Balls were dropped, passes were thrown over, under, around and through the hands of receivers by both teams, and Atkins recovered a fumble on an errant pitch by Oregon State’s Tim Alexander.

Oh, Atkins also caused the pitch to be errant.

Shortly thereafter, UCLA’s Kenyon Coleman recovered a fumbled snap from Beaver center Aaron Koch and, suddenly, the Bruins found themselves with an offensive machine.

Five plays--three of them McNown passes--and UCLA owned a 7-3 lead, with Mike Grieb hauling in a toss for a 21-yard touchdown play with 4:21 left in the first half.

It wasn’t much time, but it was enough for an exchange of three punts--both teams’ offenses had resumed stumbling and bumbling--and the third was the charm.

Oregon State’s Mike Fessler sent a meager kick of 30 yards to his own 47, and Mark Reynosa, the second of four Bruins tried at returning punts, brought it back to the Beaver 30.

Again, UCLA had an offensive juggernaut.

McNown found Danny Farmer for nine yards and Jim McElroy for 19 before handing to Lewis for the final two yards of a three-play drive to a 14-3 lead.

The key, said Oregon State Coach Mike Riley, was Roddy Thompkins’ dropped pass on third and two to set up the punt.

“We wanted to get a first down,” Riley said. “They had had two timeouts, and we weren’t concerned with scoring. We just wanted to get a first down and run out the first half.”

Instead, the Beavers (3-3, 0-3) gave up a touchdown and the ballgame.

They still had time for a scoring try of their own before halftime, but Atkins--who else?--blocked a 54-yard field-goal try by Jose Cortez as time ran out.

The second half was 30 minutes of throw-and-pray, mostly that Atkins wasn’t around. He intercepted one of Tyler Tomich’s third-quarter passes, and was an equal-opportunity pass rusher, sacking both Tim Alexander and Tomich.

Atkins has five interceptions and three fumble recoveries in the Bruins’ seven games.

“ ‘Daddy-o’ has become a leather-magnet,” said safety running-mate Shaun Williams, who can’t recall how Atkins got the nickname, but envies him the turnover prowess. Williams has one interception in his career and had a chance to double that Saturday on a ball he dropped in an open field.

Overall, it was a second half from hell for Oregon State, which saw UCLA scoring drives begin on the Beaver 41-, 32- and 45-yard lines.

Oregon State tried to counter with a school record-tying 64 passes for the game, completing 28 of them for 275 yards.

That used to be a season for the Beavers until Riley came to town.

Oregon State ran for only 32 yards in 26 carries.

That used to be a little more than a quarter of wishbone work.

“In the second half, we didn’t do anything on offense and we made the defense play too much,” Riley said. “I thought until we gave them the short fields in the second half that our defense played well.”

You also could make a case for UCLA’s offense playing sporadically.

“It wasn’t all splendor,” McNown said, laughing. “It was probably one of my worst games. I didn’t feel anything.

“We were very streaky. We couldn’t complete three or four balls in a row. We were going three and out, three and out. And then, when we had an opportunity, we could move the ball and score.

“I don’t know why, but we’ll take the win. There’s plenty we can get from it.”

He completed only 11 of 25 passes, but for 210 yards and two touchdowns, and he also threw an interception for the second week in a row.

But McNown also got a UCLA record for total offense when he threw a 36-yard pass to Lewis to the Oregon State 30 in the fourth quarter.

The play put Tom Ramsey in second place in Bruin annals in total offense with his 6,255 yards. McNown finished the day with 6,320, and after Keith Brown lost a yard, finished the drive with a 31-yard scoring pass to McElroy.

It gave UCLA a 24-3 lead, which was stretched to 31-3 when Brown scored from a yard out to end a drive that began on the Beaver 32.

Chris Sailer’s 40-yard field goal gave the Bruins their final points. He had kicked a 20-yarder earlier and now has made 15 field goals in a row.

In the end, Toledo was right, perhaps not so much in his art critique, but in his prediction of the game’s outcome.

“Keep playing hard,” he told the Bruins. “Keep beating on them like a rock and they’ll crack.”

Oregon State did crack, but the result wasn’t sculpture. It was a win, and that was enough.

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* GIFTED LEADER

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