Bruins in Ruins? No, Says Farris

If you want to believe that the UCLA football team is down in the dumps, that the Rose Bowl game against Wisconsin is more a bother than an honor, that the offense hates the defense and that the defense is sick of the offense, then you don’t want to talk to Kris Farris.

Farris, the UCLA offensive tackle from Santa Margarita High who recently won the Outland Trophy as best offensive lineman in the country and was named a first-team All-American, prefers to preface his conversation with some statements of the truth according to Farris.

“Yeah,” Farris says, “it was the dream of our lives to win a national championship, and to come so close, I never thought I’d come so close by the way, and to be 10 points up and throwing 45 points up on the board, yeah, losing that Miami game was tough. OK?

“But it’s not how everyone is visualizing it. It’s not like we weren’t ever going to get over it and that we aren’t happy to be going to the Rose Bowl and that we’re not going to have some class about it and treat the situation right.

“There’s been some tears and some disappointment and some screaming but no real yelling. Our legacy is no longer as national champions and that’s no one’s fault.”

And you want to tell Farris to slow down, take a breath and that it’s all right, that we believe him.

But Farris isn’t through. Not even close.

“If you told us a year ago that we’d be undefeated in the Pac-10, that we’d be conference champions and be going to the Rose Bowl, that would have been an amazing goal,” Farris says. “The unfortunate thing about all this is that we never had the chance to walk around with the roses in our mouths. You know? I always saw that when I was growing up, the conference champs with those roses in their mouths. I want a rose in my mouth.”

But, Kris, you will have to stop talking if you’re gonna hold that rose in your mouth, right?

“If we win the Rose Bowl,” Farris says, “I’ll be happy to shut up and put that rose in my mouth.”

The pain isn’t all gone, Farris says, but it has dulled. Two days, three tops, Farris says and the team put away Miami and took Wisconsin out of the closet.

“Time to look to the next season,” Farris says.

Maybe his interest in movies--and movie making--make it possible for Farris to switch from the perfect ending to the merely happy ending.

Farris was enchanted by Steven Spielberg’s “ET” when he was 4 and long has wanted to write and direct films.

As he matured into a large and pretty fearsome high school offensive lineman, as big-time colleges came calling with offers of scholarships and fame, Farris was still thinking of football as a means to a non-football end.

“I only looked at colleges with excellent film schools,” he says. “Which was pretty much UCLA and USC. I didn’t think of myself as that good of a football player. I wanted to use that scholarship money to take advantage of film school.”

But it’s funny. This real-life stuff isn’t like the movies. After two years of taking all the film school prerequisites, Farris was finding out that he was a darn good football player too. When, before his junior year, he was getting ready to apply to the film school, he was informed that playing UCLA-style football and fulfilling the requirements of the film school were not compatible.

“Isn’t it funny,” Farris says. “After all those years, and I never believed it would happen, I ended up choosing football.”

There was some small consolation when Farris was introduced to his hero, Spielberg, a few months ago. Spielberg told Farris not to worry, that he had not graduated from film school either and that Farris might be able to make it without going too.

“I thought that was pretty cool,” Farris says.

It is cool because Farris still plans to be a famous director some day. Just maybe not right away. With a year of football eligibility left, he has now realized that he might be a very high NFL draft pick this year and that he might make quite a nice sum of money. Money that could further that film career in a decade or so.

In other words, it will be no surprise if Farris isn’t around UCLA next season. But it won’t be a surprise someday if there is a 6-foot-9, 310-pound director in the audience at the Academy Awards. For that is the dream that grew out of Farris’ seeing a sweetly glowing little extraterrestrial make a little boy happy.

Which is not the same as pancaking some big, ol’ defensive tackle. But either thing can make Farris smile. And maybe make him rich too. Not until after the Rose Bowl, though.

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com.