Bruins Paying Heavy Penalty for Mistakes

Didn’t you used to be the Bruins?

What passes for a one-time offensive juggernaut is a team that has managed 28 points each of the last two weeks, a windfall for half the conference--six teams average less--but a cause for concern around Westwood. Just not bewilderment.

It’s mostly their own fault.

Penalties. Being pinned down by a quality punter Oct. 24 at California. Penalties. Two interceptions within the Stanford 22 last week at the Rose Bowl. Penalties. Missed field goals. Penalties.

That brings UCLA to Parker Stadium today for a 3:30 p.m. kickoff against Oregon State. A team ranked third in the nation needs to look the part, for its benefit as much as that of a doubting populace.

“Our offense has got to do a lot better,” said Keith Brown, the second-string tailback but the only one of the three at full strength. “We’ve got to put 40 points on the board.”

The Bruins haven’t done that in regulation since Oct. 10 at Arizona, by which time they were averaging 48 a game, third-best in the nation. Then came the 38-38 tie at the end of the fourth quarter against Oregon and the field goal that won it in overtime, hardly embarrassing, followed by the acceptable 28 at California and the inexcusable 28 against Stanford.

Cal, at least, had a highly regarded defense and a punter, Nick Harris, who regularly forced the Bruins to start deep in their territory. But Stanford had given up at least 30 to every previous opponent, 63 to Oregon, and 38.9 on average.

That was the red flag for the Bruins.

“We are a better offense than we’ve shown in the last couple weeks,” quarterback Cade McNown said. “Granted, I thought that we did play against a tough Cal defense and a team that put us in bad field position [with punts], so that game was suspect. But there’s no excuse against Stanford. We were in good field position several times. We just were doing stupid things and things that we need to really work on and not repeat.”

Penalties.

“You look at it,” Al Borges, the offense coordinator, said of the Stanford game. “We got 28 points, all right? We had 35 points, but we’re holding. OK, there’s one of them. We run a screen pass all the way down to the 20-something-yard line, and we’re holding. There’s another one, that you’re going to get a field goal probably out of and probably more than that. Just too many. We had seven [offensive] penalties, and they’re all taking us out of drives.

“We had 435 yards, right? You take back the 22-yard touchdown, there’s 450-something. You take back the screen pass, we’re right around 500 yards, we’re right around 40 points again, we’re doing what we always did. He [McNown] throws 31 passes, he hits 19, that’s over 60%. We’re on par.

“We have occasional 10-man football. We’ll have a break here and a break there. But the penalties are killing us. The penalties are keeping us from going ahead in the games, with an occasional breakdown. We’ve still got a few mistakes, but the penalties are the No. 1 thing.

“I will say this happened to us a year ago. We played very well early and very well late. And we had a stretch there where we played Cal, Oregon State and Stanford. Offensively, we were not at the top of our game, and a lot of it was the same thing.”

The Bruins need to stop observing Flag Day on a weekly basis.

“It has nothing to do with spark or emotion or intensity,” Coach Bob Toledo said. “It has to do with execution.”

The Bruins averaged 8.2 penalties, worth 67.4 yards, the first five games, the second-best showing in the conference. What followed was a slip in discipline--late hits, offsides--that has lasted two weeks; they lost 113 yards in 12 penalties at Cal and another 125 in 12 against Stanford.

The need for improvement is obvious. But so is the need for the offense to have a breakout game at the expense of Oregon State, something the Bruins readily acknowledge. As if to remind themselves “that we can do it,” Borges said.

“I think there’s something to that. I really do. But if we keep getting penalized, we’re just going to go through the same gut-wrenching win or loss that we’ve been going through the last three weeks. We’ve got to start playing again.”

TODAY

No. 3 UCLA at Oregon State

3:30 p.m.

Parker Stadium

Fox Sports West

AM 1150

EAGER BEAVER: Oregon State quarterback Jonathan Smith craves a shot at UCLA. Page 7