Bruins Get Sun (Devil) Burned

Delvon Flowers cut through the UCLA defense, especially the secondary, worse than Coach Bob Toledo or the fans or the media ever could. Although there is always today.

Flowers broke tackles and broke hearts. He turned what should have been a short pass play into a 49-yard touchdown with 23 seconds remaining Saturday afternoon to give Arizona State a stunning 28-27 victory over the Bruins before 54,048 at Sun Devil Stadium.

The Bruins wasted a 21-7 halftime lead, lost a critical fumble in the fourth quarter, threw a terrible pass for an interception on their next drive, and another time got the ball on the Arizona State 16 and managed only a field goal.

Flowers, and all the Sun Devils, get the credit. But UCLA gets the blame.

There went the Rose Bowl. The Bruins are not mathematically eliminated, but they also don’t need some computer program to tell them that any program at 0-2 in conference doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Pasadena of making it back.

And here come the memories.

Miami flashbacks, anyone?

The circumstances were different, playing in the final regular-season game to stay alive for the national championship instead of the fifth game to stay alive for a conference championship. But the events were the same:

* A How-Not-To-Tackle clinic by the defense down the stretch.

* Costly mistakes by the offense.

* Players who stayed on the bench while the opponent celebrated on its home field. This time, it was Joe Hunter, who sat there for a full minute and might have sat stunned for even longer except that he wanted to join the prayer huddle at midfield.

“The pain,” he said. “I can’t explain it. It hurts.”

* The locker room. The scene was so reminiscent of the one after the Miami game in the Orange Bowl. Not the part about players being critical of each other, because that didn’t happen (a considerable sign of restraint that may have come because there were so many deserving of blame), but the atmosphere, of a big opportunity lost.

“It’s the same sting,” tackle Brian Polak said. “A different situation and a different game, but the same feeling. That sick feeling you have when you lose a lead like that or lose a game like that.”

Said tailback Jermaine Lewis: “It’s a whole different situation. But it still makes you sick to your stomach.”

UCLA was 53 seconds away from being 3-2 overall and 1-1 in conference, a contender’s record in the Pac-10 of 1999. Even though Cory Paus showed the effects of the sore chest muscles and the week layoff by completing only 15 of 40 passes for 235 yards and DeShaun Foster lasted only two plays in the third quarter before being forced out again because of the bad ankle (Keith Brown filled in nicely with 182 yards and two touchdowns). Even though the fourth quarter started with the 20-yard field goal by Chris Griffith because of the Bruins’ inability to fully capitalize on a drive that started on the 16, and then Lewis fumbled on the next UCLA possession to set up one Sun Devil touchdown, and then Paus threw a ball right to linebacker Adam Archuleta on the possession after that.

The Bruins were doing their best to also keep Arizona State’s Rose Bowl hopes alive. But these Sun Devils, circling the drain themselves after losing to 28 1/2-point underdog New Mexico State two weeks ago and then blowing a fourth-quarter lead to California in the conference opener, couldn’t take advantage. UCLA led, 24-21, with a minute left.

When Griffith kicked a 42-yarder with 53 seconds left, the Bruins were in even better shape. The lead was six, meaning Arizona State had to go for the touchdown and couldn’t play for overtime with a field goal. Ryan Kealy, its starting quarterback, was out since late in the first quarter because of bruised ribs, though running back J.R. Redmond, also a question mark coming in because of a bad shoulder, was on his way to 185 yards in 23 carries. And this was the same offense that had already been booed twice before on the day, including a little more than a minute earlier.

The Sun Devils took over at their 20 after a touchback. Griffin Goodman, the replacement quarterback for the ineffective replacement for Kealy, threw 11 yards to Tariq McDonald on first down. He hit Todd Heap for 20 yards on the next play, putting the ball on the UCLA 49. Thirty-four seconds remained. The Bruins, rushing three players and keeping eight others back, were giving up yardage, but they were also willing to give up those relatively short gains to stop the major blow.

Say, a 49-yard gain that could put a dagger in their season.

The killer for the Bruins about the killer was that the pass itself was from the third-string quarterback to the third-string tailback and covered all of about five yards. Then Flowers, from Inglewood High and El Camino College, started running.

Bruins missed tackles, but they didn’t always miss each other--when a Sun Devil blocked cornerback Ricky Manning Jr., Manning flew into teammate Eric Whitfield and took him out too. Flowers continued down the left side, bringing the fans to their feet when the short gain turned into a big one and then turned into the winning touchdown.

“We missed an awful lot of tackles,” Toledo said. “We tried to make them go 80 yards and not make any mistakes, which is hard to do. And they did it.

“It was a great effort. You’ve got to give the kid [Flowers] credit. He made a great catch and a great run. But we made him a lot better than he was. We missed a lot of tackles.

“I’ve got a sick feeling right now. It’s like we got something and somebody took it away. We played 59 minutes and 30 seconds.”