The Seasons, and the Mood, Begin Shifting in Westwood

The leaves don’t morph into spectacular fall colors on the UCLA campus. That doesn’t mean there aren’t sure-fire ways to tell when the seasons are changing.

A stack of UCLA men’s media guides greeted reporters when they arrived for the football team’s weekly news conference. It underscored, even if unintentionally, the feeling in the air. UCLA’s football season is done. Time for hoops.

That 38-28 loss at Stanford last weekend all but eliminated the Bruins from contention for the national championship.

It happens to be one of the many problems with the BCS system: A loss in October--or even September--can make the rest of the season feel as meaningless as an Angel game in August. Sure, these regular-season games have more importance, but try justifying that to the chambers of commerce for cities that host these increasingly irrelevant secondary bowl games.

Oh well, the Bruins still have a shot at winning the Pacific 10 Conference title and playing in the Rose ... oops. The Pac-10’s good old Plan B doesn’t even apply this year, since the Rose Bowl is the destination of the two top-ranked teams.

So now the Bruins are living with scaled-down dreams.

“Having a BCS berth--even going to the Fiesta Bowl--that would be a good thing,” safety Marques Anderson said. “Fiesta Bowl’s still a good bowl. A lot could come out of that.”

They’re trying to put on a brave face, but they have so many issues to sort out right now that maybe they’re better off without the pressure of competing for a national title.

Quarterback Cory Paus has an injured thumb and probably won’t play Saturday at Washington State. And there’s no ironclad guarantee that he will start if he’s ready to go against Oregon on Nov. 10.

Paus’ play in the first half against Stanford, when he completed only five of 16 passes and had trouble connecting on the intermediate routes, didn’t warrant another start. Scott McEwan played in the second half and led UCLA’s not-quite-good-enough rally.

Paus’ injury sure let Coach Bob Toledo off the hook.

Paus says, “Right now I can’t hold a football well enough to throw it,” which would pretty much take him out of the running.

“He’s not healthy this week, but he’s our starting quarterback,” Toledo said.

The key was asking the right questions. What if McEwan (who has an ankle injury to deal with himself) were to play exceptionally well against Washington State?

“Then I would have a decision to make,” Toledo said.

So this is one element of the season that is definitely not over. If McEwan has a good game--and he needs to for the Bruins to win--this could turn into a week-to-week affair.

The Bruins also have to deal with injuries to starting center Troy Danoff and Jason Stephens. In each case they’re looking at replacing a senior with a freshman. Receiver Brian Poli-Dixon probably won’t play, either.

They also have to see if the defense can return to the ferocious form it showed in the first six games. The Bruins just didn’t look ready to match Stanford’s intensity in the first half. And at Washington State they’ll face the Pac-10’s leading offense.

Where was the running game? A 21-point deficit did more to negate DeShaun Foster than any nine-man front the Bruins have faced this season. Toledo likes to get Foster about 30 carries a game, but when the Bruins fell so far behind, they had to abandon the running game in favor of the pass. Foster’s 21 rushes were his fewest this season.

Where does this leave the Bruins for their remaining four games? As Toledo said about the current injury-riddled group, “We won’t be the same team, but we’re still good enough to compete.”

With a 3-1 conference record, the Bruins can take the Pac-10 crown by winning out. There are four teams with 4-1 records, but the Bruins get their shots at two of them--Washington State and Oregon--and they’ve already beaten Washington. Now they need Washington to beat Stanford, which finishes its conference play with Arizona and California, two of the weaker teams in the league.

By the way, can Stanford get a little credit? The Bruins sure were quick to praise the Cardinal after getting a first-hand look. But Stanford still falls behind UCLA and Oregon in the Associated Press rankings, despite having beaten both schools.

Stanford is 13th in the coaches’ poll. Thirteenth? Whom did Tyrone Willingham tick off at the last coaches’ convention?

At least the BCS rankings have Stanford sixth, ahead of UCLA and Oregon. But that doesn’t give me complete confidence in the system.

There’s a serious reality gap when Miami is undefeated, No. 1 in the coaches’ and media polls, and still can’t get one of the top two spots in the BCS rankings.

You know what it reminds me of? Every year there’s some “Most Livable City in America” ranking that considers cost of living, crime rate, school systems and tries to make the case that someplace like Sioux City, Iowa, is the best place to be. Right. The whole reason the population, and therefore crime and housing prices, aren’t soaring there is because nobody wants to live there in the first place.

The BCS’ own rankings place an emphasis on strength of schedule and feature five Pac-10 teams among the top 15. It’s too much to expect a team to go undefeated through a conference that tough. But in the first year that a spot in the Rose Bowl guarantees a shot at the national championship, there’s a good chance the Pac-10 will get neither.

“You could say it’s unfair, but the rules apply to everybody,” Anderson said. “That’s the consequence of losing a game and having a slip-up.”

So UCLA can join about 12 other teams that could have legitimate gripes come December. That’s some consolation.

On the other hand, at least basketball season will have started by then.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com.