After Dayne Runs Them Over, They Beat Themselves Up : They Need to Do More Than Coast

You didn’t need to see the game. You only needed to look at the roses.

UCLA was the flimsy petals.

Wisconsin was the thorny stem.

UCLA collapsed at the first strong breeze.

Wisconsin stuck, and stuck, and stuck.

UCLA played the part of the stereotypical West Coast football program, rich in athleticism but poor of heart.

And didn’t Wisconsin know it.

“Definitely soft,” Badger cornerback Jamar Fletcher said of the Bruins after his team defeated them, 38-31, in the 85th Rose Bowl on Friday.

“They have great athletes and a great system,” Fletcher said. “But when it comes to tough, they’re not tough at all.”

Amid the confused stares in the other locker room, Bruin guard Andy Meyers heard this, sighed, shook his head.

“That is a classless, asinine statement,” he said.

Perhaps. But is it true?

Was this loss about more than a freshman fumble, a wobbly interception, a parade route’s worth of yards allowed?

Was this loss about an entire state of mind?

Fletcher being only 19 and still buzzing after returning an interception 46 yards for the game-clinching touchdown, he may be prone to embellishment.

But during another exhilarating Rose Bowl afternoon that proved this game will always be bigger than the teams who play in it, many things were clear.

And the question needs to be asked.

Did this pretty UCLA veneer crack like a cheap floor after 10 games because Bob Toledo has built a wonderfully gifted program that, on all sides, is just not tough enough?

“They talked [on the field] about how they were going to come in here and play Big Ten football, but we knew they couldn’t play Big Ten football, not like us,” Fletcher said.

What he lacks in tact, he make up in supportive evidence.

First, if nothing else, Friday’s game proved that UCLA is still not a football school. Period.

There has been no other home game in all of organized football this season--or many seasons--where the visiting team owned the stadium like this one.

Wisconsin had more fans. Wisconsin’s fans were much louder.

The UCLA offense messed up an important goal-line possession in the third quarter because of the hostile noise, for Cade’s sake. Hostile noise in their own house.

Afterward, the scene was almost comical, with the Wisconsin band dancing on the field, and half a stadium’s worth of Wisconsin fans singing their alma mater, and the UCLA band trying fruitlessly to be heard.

“They just don’t have the football fans out there like we have back in Wisconsin,” Fletcher said.

UCLA’s support this year was better than ever. Tickets for this game--$110 a seat--were more expensive than ever.

I’m not telling anybody how to spend their money. If my favorite team blew a chance at a national championship and was put in a game against what was supposed to be only the third-best team in the Big Ten, I might not have spent the money, either.

But I am telling you what it sounded like. And it sounded like Madison. And that sort of tough atmosphere is what UCLA needs to somehow create.

That, and a fight-night mentality.

With every giant Ron Dayne shove, with every push by every puny Wisconsin defensive back, the Badger philosophy was clear.

They saw the game as a 60-minute brawl.

The Bruins saw it as a little dancing, a little jabbing, a little dancing . . .

“They need to learn what it takes,” Meyers said of his teammates. “It takes a little something more.”

It takes more than Dayne, at 253 pounds, outrunning 203-pound linebacker Ryan Nece for 40 yards on Wisconsin’s first touchdown.

It takes more than Dayne bumping off a pack of five tacklers to score his second touchdown.

It takes more than Dayne literally shrugging off cornerback Marques Anderson to score his fourth touchdown.

It takes more than 94 yards of penalties against one of the country’s best-coached teams, including consecutive holding calls that killed the Bruins’ opening drive.

It takes more than a perfectly executed fake punt in the fourth quarter that didn’t get a first down . . . because receiver Ali Abdul Azziz didn’t run his route to the first-down marker.

Finally, Friday, with the Bruins given one last chance to pull out yet another goose-bumps victory, one for recruiting, one for next year, one that would loudly strip away that heartless perception, this is what happened:

One pass was broken up. Another pass was underthrown. And guard Oscar Cabrera was beaten one-on-one for a sack by freshman Wendell Bryant.

Cade McNown, who didn’t deserve any of this, ended a masterpiece career with shoes covered in turpentine.

“The players just folded,” said Freddie Mitchell, the Bruin freshman receiver who will have to be a leader next year.

“Next year,” Mitchell said, “we’ll score 60 points a game so it doesn’t matter what the defense does.”

But it’s not only the defense. It’s not only maligned coordinator Nick Aliotti. It’s not only the youthful defensive linemen, or undersized linebackers.

As Friday proved, it’s a little something about everything.

The Bruins are fortunate to have the leadership of Toledo and the offensive wit of Alan Borges. They are doing their best defensive recruiting efforts in recent memory. The future is in place.

They simply need to somehow cover it all with a coat of a shellac.

And soon.

“This wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be,” said Fletcher. “We just beat them up. You could see it in their eyes.”

Classless and asinine, maybe, but UCLA should listen. UCLA should learn.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com