Yet Another Roadblock for Bruins

No way California wins this game, not at first glance, not even if heralded Cal punter Nick Harris kicks so well that UCLA starts each drive 99 yards from the end zone.

The Golden Bears simply don’t score enough to win in the Pacific 10 Conference. In two Pac-10 games, both losses, the Bears have totaled 27 points. In the third quarter of their last game, the Bruins scored 28 points.

Enough said? Not quite, for there is that one little nagging question that lurks in the mind of every UCLA player: Can we win on the road?

“That’s been there all week,” receiver Drew Bennett said. “We need to stop people talking about how we can’t win on the road. We definitely need to stop that right now.”

The 4-1 record is nice. The No. 13 national ranking looks good.

But then there is this: Sophomore quarterback Cory Paus never has won a road game.

Nor, for that matter, have any of the other freshmen or sophomores. The Bruins last won as visitors Nov. 14, 1998, at Washington. Since, they have lost seven on the road, and welcome to Berkeley.

“It’s weird,” receiver Freddie Mitchell said. “I wish I had the answer. Then it wouldn’t happen.”

The Bruins’ 20-game winning streak of 1997 and ‘98, which included nine victories away from the Rose Bowl, ended far from home, with a thud. One victory away from a chance to play for the national championship, UCLA lost, 49-45, at Miami on Dec. 5, 1988. That road loss forced Nick Aliotti, the embattled UCLA defensive coordinator, to hit the road in search of work in Oregon.

UCLA played five road games last season--four against unranked teams--and lost them all. But, in a 4-7 season, the Bruins lost at home to bad teams too--including 17-0 to Cal, the first time in 36 years the Bears had shut out the Bruins.

“Last year we weren’t a real good team,” tailback Jermaine Lewis said.

This year? Four home games, four victories. One road game, one loss, 29-10 to No. 9 Oregon, in a stadium where the Ducks have won 18 consecutive games.

“Last year was last year,” UCLA Coach Bob Toledo said. “The Oregon game was the Oregon game. They’ve won all those games in a row, and we didn’t play well.”

And there you have today’s story line: No explanations accepted for a road loss here. If the Bruins are as improved as they fancy themselves, they must win this game. No one will confuse Cal with a nationally ranked team.

A loss today would all but eliminate the Bruins from Rose Bowl contention. A decisive victory would help eliminate those whispers about road futility, voices otherwise sure to grow louder when UCLA plays at Arizona in two weeks, and at Washington in four weeks.

“It hasn’t affected this team mentally yet,” Lewis said. “We’ll just keep it in the back of our minds and feed off it.”

Toledo said the coaching staff has discussed the road woes, wondering whether it might help to alter any of the pregame routine.

“We’ve thought about food, meetings, different things,” he said. “But we’re doing the same things we did when we won 20 in a row.

“Maybe we ought to scrimmage for a half-hour before we start the game.”

That allusion, only half-joking, refers to the Bruins’ slow starts. UCLA opponents have scored first in all five games. If the Bears score first today, the Bruins will have to come from behind while fighting off the demons of the road.

“We’ll see what kind of team we are this week,” kicker Chris Griffith said. “We need to end that away losing streak. We need to win to have the season we want to have.”

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No. 13 UCLA at California, 12:30 p.m., No TV