Bruins Look for Middle Ground

It happened at Oregon, and it happened again Saturday at California. The home team beat UCLA, and students hopped the railings and stormed the field to celebrate the vanquishing of the big bad Bruins. At Cal, some of the UCLA players walking off the field almost got trampled by onrushing students.

“To see their fans and players so overjoyed was disgusting,” linebacker Ryan Nece said.

By that yardstick, UCLA must be pretty good. No one rushes onto the field to celebrate a victory over, say, New Mexico State. But the debate over how good the Bruins are rages anew after that demoralizing triple-overtime loss to Cal, 46-38. As quarterback Cory Paus said, “On paper, we should have killed them.”

The Bruins are getting worse, not better. Yes, they beat Alabama and Michigan, each ranked third in the country at the time. But, if it weren’t for a 21-point comeback against an Arizona State team that lost its star quarterback to injury in the third quarter, the Bruins would be 0-3 in the Pac-10, seated beside USC in the conference basement.

The UCLA players keep saying the Bruins can beat any team in the country, so long as they do not beat themselves, but Coach Bob Toledo wonders whether the national-championship hype was premature.

“You’re probably never as good as you think you are or as bad as you think you are,” he said. “That’s kind of where we’re at right now.

“I thought we’d be a decent team. The way we started, everybody thought we’d be a great team. We have to tone that down a little bit.”

On the plus side, the Bruins are 4-2 and ranked 23rd, even though they are playing with a defensive line riddled by injuries, and without Paus and star tailback DeShaun Foster having completed a game together. On the minus side, Toledo is threatening changes on a veteran offensive line opening so few holes that the Bruins rank last in the conference in rushing, and UCLA has fallen behind in the first quarter of every game.

“We’re as good as we want to be,” receiver Freddie Mitchell said. “We keep beating ourselves. Oregon didn’t beat us. Cal didn’t beat us. We’ve faced good teams. We’ve faced the No. 3 team in the nation. We know what’s good and what’s not.”

Said Nece: “I think the fairest assessment is, this is a great team of great players. When we want to, we can be a great team.”

Said Paus: “I don’t know if we’re getting better or getting worse. I still think we’re a very good team. The only thing we have to get out of our system is not being able to get up for the ‘smaller’ games. Maybe we’re not getting as excited as we were when we played Alabama and Michigan.”

The emotion that was present against Alabama and Michigan was absent against Cal, Nece said.

“I definitely think teams are preparing to play us like it’s the last game of the season,” he said.

“We need to be able to match that.”

That would seem to be an indictment of the coaching staff, but players said coaches have made that very point, repeatedly.

“It’s on the players,” Mitchell said.

The coaches also have emphasized the importance of scoring first. During the Bruins’ 20-game winning streak of 1997-98, Nece said: “I don’t think there was ever an easy game. The difference is the way they started games. We haven’t started games fast and put points on the board early. That’s the best way to stop a team that’s ready to play their best game--get on top of them early and take away their hope.”

The Bruins’ hope of a national championship has evaporated and so has their hope for a Rose Bowl berth. With each loss, expectations dip.

“Our expectations are to go to a quality bowl game,” Nece said. “If we get another loss, that puts you further behind the 8-ball in terms of quality bowls. That’s where we were last year.”

The Bruins shudder at the mention of last year. They lost to Cal last season, 17-0, starting a three-week spiral that included a 55-7 loss to Oregon State and a 33-7 loss to Arizona.

After this loss to Cal, the Bruins face Oregon State on Saturday and Arizona next week.

“It’s unfortunate we have two losses, but it could definitely be worse,” Paus said. “We could be a team struggling for answers. We could be a team not scoring any points. That’s what happened last year. We’re not anywhere near that this year.”