Trick or Treat

When most guys hit the big time, they drop the gimmicks they used along the way.

You don’t see Steve Martin step on stage with an arrow through his head anymore, do you? When was the last time Eddie Murphy wore a Gumby outfit?

No such sense of dignity for Bob Toledo. He can’t resist bringing a little of his vaudeville act to Broadway.

His UCLA Bruins are ranked No. 2 in the nation. They’re supposed to be above the goofy stand-up antics. Yet you still can count on them using some type of trick play every Saturday.

“We’re going to always have something every game,” Toledo said. “I get bored in practice if I don’t do something.”

Keep ‘em guessing, right? That’s the essence of show biz.

Except this is football. All of the gadgets in the world won’t bring about a victory if a team can’t block or cover receivers, and losses bring about bad reviews, which quickly lead to firings.

The good news for UCLA is the Bruins don’t need the gimmicks anymore. They have a first-rate offensive line, a quarterback who makes plays when he has to and a defense that makes plays when it has to.

That comes in handy because the tricks haven’t fooled anybody lately.

Against Arizona, the Bruins tried a play in which quarterback Cade McNown throws a lateral to split end Danny Farmer, who is supposed to throw the ball back across the field to McNown.

Only the Wildcats saw it coming, anticipating it so well that an Arizona defender grabbed McNown and held him. Unfortunately for the Bruins, the officials weren’t anticipating the same thing and didn’t call a penalty.

Against Oregon last weekend, the Bruins called a halfback option pass. Not only were the Ducks not deceived, they actually had two men covering the receiver when tailback DeShaun Foster tried to throw the ball.

It’s almost as if opponents have been looking into Toledo’s bag of tricks.

“I get a lot of guys at practice,” Toledo said, eyeing a group of onlookers assembled in the bleachers at Spaulding Field. “I don’t know.”

Espionage? Could be. Most of the team’s practices are open, and who knows what spies could be lurking in the small assortment of curious students, alumni, men in business suits, toddlers and babies. One guy even brought a snake the other day. Could he be trusted?

Toledo doesn’t care. That’s what makes him such a good antidote to the quasi-military mentality that infects most of college football. He coaches with a sense of humor. He doesn’t treat a football practice like a national secret. He doesn’t take his games so seriously that he can’t crack a joke in the form of a gadget play.

So he’ll always mix in a few halfback options or hitch-and-pitch plays while the offense is practicing. If some other team knows it’s there, all the better.

“My big thing is, if people have to practice or take time to practice those little trick plays, the clock’s ticking,” Toledo said. “You only get so many minutes and hours to practice. When they’re practicing that stuff, that’s taking away from practicing our bread and butter. That’s why I do those things.

“It makes them think: ‘Is it coming now? Is this the time?’ ”

Toledo believes it paid off last Saturday, when the Bruins lined up with three receivers on one side in the final minute of regulation and threw a long pass that gave Chris Sailer an opportunity for a 21-yard field goal before time expired.

“[Oregon] only had one [defensive back] to the three-receiver side,” Toledo said. “They put two to the other side. They thought something was funny, I guess. They weren’t aligned very well.”

The players have their own reasons to love the trick plays. Much the way basketball centers always want to prove they can dribble, players other than the quarterback want to prove they have a good arm. “I haven’t been able to show it,” Farmer said. “But I’m always ready to throw. I’m always ready to do something new.”

So is his coach. If you see a guy wearing fake glasses and a mustache on the sidelines during today’s game at California, you’ll know who it is.