Nothing Little About UCLA Predicament

What a strange place for UCLA to be.

Not here, in this city for the first time since 1980 to play Ohio State.

Here, in this place.

The Bruins who have taken the program back to national prominence have been underdogs since the resurgence, but they have not been dismissed the way they have been for tonight’s kickoff at historic Ohio Stadium. It’s a feeling as unusual as the Big Ten setting.

The last time was against Tennessee in ‘97, when Peyton Manning came to Pasadena. UCLA had just been machine-gunned by Ryan Leaf at Washington State and was without star defensive back Shaun Williams, but that was before the 20-game winning streak that turned the direction of the program. The only other times were in 1996, once at Tennessee in Bob Toledo’s first game as coach against the No. 2 team in the nation and two weeks later at No. 6 Michigan. The Bruins were young for those games, the coaching staff was new and the entire group would finish 5-6.

This is different.

This is a team that would normally be considered worthy of its No. 14 ranking and worthy of being given a chance against an Ohio State squad only one place higher and coming off a poor showing in its opener, a 23-12 loss to Miami. This is a team that could contend for the Pacific 10 Conference title.

But because it is also a program still without 10 key players, serving the last part of the two-game suspensions for the handicapped-parking scheme, most appear willing to give UCLA some sympathy tonight, but not respect. If only they could play Ohio State with a full roster.

They are suddenly the Discounted Bruins, the What If? Bruins.

The Gutty Little Bru. . . .

Don’t say it.

Don’t even think it.

“I don’t buy that,” Toledo said, distancing the program from the image of its past.

The few, the proud, the Bruins.

“Like I told our team, regardless of who we play, we’re UCLA and we expect to win,” he said. “I’m sure Ohio State feels the same way. We expect to win because we’re at that level in the program. I don’t like that term. I hate to keep talking about it because there’s a lot of great old gutty little Bruins out there, but this is a new era.

“We’re no longer that. We’re not little anymore. I appreciate what they were in the past and I respect them, but it was a different era. And this is an era of big people.”

Unfortunately for UCLA, it’s also another week of big people watching on television: Oscar Cabrera, Ryan Nece, James Ghezzi, Durell Price, etc. What remains is a team that is capable, but also young, meaning the Bruins have other worries besides getting worn down by the Ohio State offensive line that has two starters listed at 6 feet 7 and three at 295 pounds or more and a defensive line that is likewise imposing.

They have the worry of the actual building, not the humans in the trenches impersonating a strip mall.

They have to deal with playing in Ohio Stadium.

“I think it’s the youngness of our football team,” Toledo said. “We’ve been in some big stadiums--Tennessee, Michigan, those things. So a lot of our older guys, it won’t bother them too much. But I think some of the younger guys, yeah, they’ll be a little wide-eyed. That’s always a concern.”

The first extensive renovation of the structure built in 1922 is scheduled for completion for the 2001 season with a capacity of about 97,000, but the max now is more like 94,000. Any UCLA player around last season played in front of as many people against Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl game. So it’s not the attendance.

Ohio State Coach John Cooper, a former assistant at UCLA and head man at Arizona State, is the first to admit that Washington’s Husky Stadium is louder than his current residence, and UCLA also played there last year. So it’s not the noise.

In the case of the Bruins, unlike Big Ten clubs who regularly come through here, it might be the mystique. Get psyched out by a building? Toledo himself wonders how his younger players will be affected by location alone.

“A few of my teammates have asked how loud it is there and just how crazy it is,” said Matt Stanley, the UCLA fullback who lived here for six years before heading to Westwood and attended about three games a season. “I think they [are close to finishing] remodeling, so it’s going to be a little different. But I just tell them it’s going to be something like they’ve never seen before. They really don’t know, like myself, what it’s like to play in one of these games.

“Their fans are just die-hards. They live and die for the team. They absolutely despise, I guess you could say, hate the opponent. It’s going to be crazy.”

They throw things on the field.

“Yeah, they can have some rude fans,” Stanley said. “I’ve seen some fights there. I’ve seen a lot of people throwing stuff. It’s a very hostile crowd.”

They toss themselves on the field.

“Just fans going overboard and absolutely losing their mind over a football game,” he said. “I’ve seen a couple fights. They’ll rush the field a lot at the end of games. If something bad happens to Ohio State, they are that quick to boo their own team. They are just a crazy bunch of fans.

“You name it, it happens.”

Major upsets involving short-handed teams?

*

TWO SIDES: Bruins will use two quarterbacks again. Page 8