Foster Injures Knee Ligament, Will Have MRI

UCLA lost prized freshman tailback DeShaun Foster for the second half and overtime--and likely longer--when he suffered a sprained ligament in his left knee during the second quarter of the Bruins’ 41-38 victory over Oregon Saturday at the Rose Bowl.

The good news for UCLA is that the MRI he will have, probably Monday, is mostly precautionary and that there is no indication the injury is anything more than the sprain. The bad news is that even that almost certainly means Foster will start the week listed as doubtful for next Saturday’s game at Cal.

He suffered the injury when Tamoni Joiner of Oregon tackled him after a 10-yard reception from Cade McNown with 9:09 left in the second quarter and Joiner’s helmet collided with Foster’s knee. When Foster remained on the ground, holding his knee, the Rose Bowl crowd immediately went quiet.

“I thought I tore it,” Foster said of the medial collateral ligament.

But after being helped up the field, and spending the rest of the game with crutches, he was feeling much better, even feeling optimistic about being able to play in Berkeley. Bruin officials won’t know about that until seeing the MRI results and how the joint swells or stiffens overnight.

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UCLA Coach Bob Toledo said he made the right decision in not calling timeout in regulation before Chris Sailer missed a 21-yard field goal that would have won the game in regulation.

With 22 seconds left, McNown threw a 53-yard pass to Drew Bennett to give the Bruins a first down at the Oregon four-yard line. The clock stopped with the first down, but restarted once the chains were moved and set.

Instead of using a timeout, Toledo rushed his field-goal unit on the field. The Bruins snapped the ball with two seconds on the clock and Sailer missed left.

Why didn’t Toledo call time?

“Timeout?” Toledo said afterward. “To freeze the kicker? Is that what you wanted me to do? Why? We ran the offense out with 11 seconds to go. We had a lot of time. Plus, I was getting tired, I wanted the game to end.”

McNown, asked if there could have been a timeout called, said, “Sure, there could have.”

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UCLA extended its school-record winning streak to 15, the longest in the nation. . . . The final details for the Dec. 5 game at Miami, rescheduled because of Hurricane Georges, have been worked out. Kickoff will be at 2 p.m.--11 a.m. in Los Angeles, and in body time for the Bruins--and ESPN will televise. . . . With his 395 yards Saturday, McNown moved into fifth place in Pac-10 career passing yards with 8,663. With his next completion, McNown will likely move into fourth, ahead of former Arizona State quarterback Jake Plummer, who has 8,664 career passing yards.