UCLA Has Boss’ Job to Protect on Defense

The closing argument begins at 11 a.m. Friday, on national television. The case? UCLA’s defense is defending itself against charges it cannot defend against opposing teams.

No oratory necessary. The Sun Bowl scoreboard will speak for the defense.

The more the Wisconsin offense lights up the Bruins, the more likely that UCLA Coach Bob Toledo will return to campus and remove his defensive coordinator, at the risk of alienating his defensive players. The Bruin football team believes it has a championship run in it in 2001, and Toledo does not plan to allow a porous defense to squander that opportunity.

After a 38-35 loss to USC last month--the third time this season the Bruins had scored at least 35 points and lost--Toledo publicly criticized the defense, declining to say whether Bob Field would return as defensive coordinator.

Toledo insists he has not made decisions about next season’s coaching staff and says he won’t until he meets with the assistants next month. He is equally insistent, however, that he won’t let the program deepen a reputation similar to the one that stuck to old Brigham Young squads--score, score some more and hope to outscore the other team.

“It concerns me. Absolutely, it concerns me. I don’t want that kind of reputation,” Toledo said. “I want people to know that we do play good football and that we will have a good defense.”

The Bruins (6-5) scored 33 points a game this season, more than any Pacific 10 Conference team except New Year’s Day participants Oregon State and Washington. For the fourth time in five seasons under Toledo, they averaged at least 30 points.

But, for the fourth time in those five seasons, opponents averaged at least 28 points. The Bruins gave up 347 points this season, the most in school history.

“My basic philosophy is, you win on offense and keep from getting beat on defense,” Toledo said. “We’ve been winning, in my opinion, on offense. But we haven’t been keeping from getting beat.”

While the Bruins talked bravely of contending for a national championship after defeating Alabama and Michigan earlier this season, their stars are aligned for a championship run next season. The Bruins play only one road game against a team that finished with a winning record this season.

Even if All-American receiver Freddie Mitchell jumps to the NFL, as expected, the Bruins believe they can light up scoreboards across America, so long as quarterback Cory Paus and tailback DeShaun Foster stay injury-free. Foster, receiver Brian Poli-Dixon, fullback Ed Ieremia-Stansbury and tight end Bryan Fletcher all will be seniors.

Is that enough? Cade McNown nearly led the Bruins to a national championship two years ago, despite a defense that yielded 340 points, the previous school record. Field insists next year’s defense can do much better.

“Our defense next year can be really good, if everybody comes back healthy,” Field said. “We can compete for a Pac-10 championship, and if you win those games, you certainly have a chance for a national championship.”

The Bruins will have eight starters returning on defense, assuming linebacker Robert Thomas does not skip to the NFL. They are the same guys who got torched this season, but Field does not hesitate to make the case for them--and, indirectly, for himself.

“The first four games, you saw 11 good defenders playing well together,” he said. “If we’d have gone through 11 games the way we’ve gone through the last part of the season, I’d say we weren’t getting it done. But you look at those first four games and you say we looked pretty good.”

The Bruins allowed 319 yards a game in the first four games, 465 in the last seven. Of the 13 touchdowns scored against UCLA in the first four games, one was on a punt return, another on an interception return, and three resulted from fumbles, opponents driving four, six and 29 yards.

The Bruins started the same 11 defenders in the first three games. In the third game, against Michigan, defensive end and All-American candidate Kenyon Coleman suffered a season-ending knee injury, and the dominoes began falling. The Bruins ran their 4-3 defense with nine starters along the defensive line and Thomas, the middle linebacker, playing with limited mobility because of a stress fracture in his left foot.

“The numbers don’t show half the ability of our defense. That’s what’s sad,” cornerback Ricky Manning said.

“It has nothing to do with coaching. It has everything to do with players and injuries. We had to put a lot of guys out there who were third- and fourth-team defensive line.”

In absolving Field and the defensive coaches, Manning is far from alone. The defensive players like and respect Field, but they are not endorsing him so much as scoffing at the concept of Toledo’s switching the coordinator again.

“I think that’s as far from the answer as you can get,” safety Jason Zdenek said.

This year’s seniors have played for three defensive coordinators. Rocky Long left after the 1997 season to become head coach at New Mexico. Nick Aliotti left under pressure after the 1998 season and is now defensive coordinator at Oregon. Field, the defensive coordinator for 14 years under former coach Terry Donahue, is in his second season in that capacity under Toledo.

With each change, of course, comes a different defensive scheme.

“That’s the last thing we need,” linebacker Ryan Nece said. “This system is still relatively new. This is our second year running it. That’s the first time that’s happened since we’ve been here.”

Said linebacker Tony White: “We need to have a set defense and not change every year. The more you run a defense, the more guys can learn the system and play more instinctively.”

Toledo endorses the defensive scheme Field teaches, and he observes progress from the defense as run by Aliotti.

“A couple of years ago, we had 10 guys on the field. We were running around like a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off at times. That bothered me,” Toledo said.

“That hasn’t happened lately. We have 11 guys on the field. We do get lined up right. Then, when the ball is snapped, sometimes we don’t play very well. That bothers me and concerns me, and I’m taking a good hard look at that.”

Maybe Toledo and all his offense-minded colleagues have been so successful and creative that the UCLA defense isn’t really that awful for this day and age. The Bruins allowed 31.5 points a game this season; the average NCAA Division I-A team scored a record 26.2 points a game.

Maybe the Bruins need better defenders, or more of them.

“I think we’re evaluating them right,” Toledo said. “We’re recruiting guys everybody else is recruiting.”

But the poor defense could get worse, not better, if another wave of injuries hits in the next couple of seasons. The Bruins signed no defensive linemen last year, and none have committed to UCLA so far this year.

Of the 14 freshmen this season, five play defense. Of the 16 players orally committed to UCLA for next season, five play defense, with two others listed as “athletes” who might play on either side of the ball.

And, as sure as the Bruins wear blue, other teams are recruiting against UCLA by telling high school stars that defense is not a priority in Westwood and warning of impending staff turmoil. Last month, a UCLA assistant coach was out recruiting when he ran breathlessly to a telephone to call Toledo, to check out a rumor that Field already had been fired.

Toledo has not fired an assistant coach in his tenure at UCLA, though he did hold the door open for Aliotti on his way out. Field has coached at UCLA for 22 seasons, and Toledo said he would like to retain Field in some capacity, should he decide to hire a new defensive coordinator.

“Bob Field is a good coach and a good person,” Toledo said. “It’s not his fault. The unfortunate thing for him is, he’s the coordinator, and everybody always blames the coordinator first.”

If the Bruins contend next season for the conference championship, and perhaps the national championship, then Toledo will be looking good, whether or not he retains Field as defensive coordinator. If Toledo decides to employ his fourth defensive coordinator in five years, and that doesn’t work out, everybody might stop blaming the coordinator first.

SUN

FRIDAY

at El Paso

UCLA vs.

Wisconsin

11 a.m.,

Channel 2

Payout:

$1 million

*

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ROSE

Giant

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