The New Bruins: Cardiac Kids With a Pulse in November

There is heart in this UCLA football team and that is a big deal. It shouldn’t be. It is assumed that college sports teams are filled with young athletes who have non-stop enthusiasm, optimism and energy, who always look forward and always keep trying.

This has not been the case with Bruin football teams. Not the most recent ones coached by Bob Toledo. Not the last three, which have gone 4-11 over the last five games of the season.

It has been embarrassing, it has been discouraging, it has come to be expected. UCLA will deflate like a hot-air balloon when the gas goes off.

“This team has heart,” redshirt freshman linebacker Spencer Havner said. Havner said this just after he finished a game with an interception returned for a touchdown, the final touchdown, the game-clinching touchdown in UCLA’s 34-24 win over Washington Saturday.

“We have heart,” said Marcus Reese, a senior linebacker who had an interception too, after Havner had tipped a Cody Pickett pass.

Toledo said, before Havner spoke, that his seniors have taken it upon themselves to educate the youngsters, the 10 true freshmen, the 12 redshirt freshmen who are getting serious playing time for the Bruins. The seniors are teaching the rookies how a college football team should behave when October turns to November.

This might seem wrongheaded, having the same guys who have collapsed three years running explain to the young and uninitiated how not to fold up. But it’s working.

The Bruins could have quit Saturday. Heck, they had been dead and buried two weeks ago when they’d lost to Cal and had two quarterbacks -- starter Cory Paus and backup Drew Olson -- injured. That game was lost, and freshman quarterback Matt Moore lost his redshirt year by playing in the following week’s game, a victory over Stanford.

There were even some UCLA fans who, having lost faith in Toledo, were upset because now, they thought, Toledo might be given a pass on a bad season. It would not be Toledo’s fault, this collapse, because he’d lost his quarterbacks.

Except the Bruins are not dead and buried.

The way they beat the Huskies -- barely hanging on, looking exhausted in the fourth quarter, seemingly having suffered one too many injuries, having to put one too many rookies, scout-team guys, last-gasp players on the field -- this win proved something.

“We have heart,” defensive end Dave Ball said.

“We learned this team will not quit,” senior cornerback Ricky Manning said. Manning knows about the quitting. He’s seen it happen three years in a row. He will not talk about the past. He will say, “This team is different. We know what’s been said about us. But not about this team. Don’t talk about this team. This team has heart.”

There was a point in the fourth quarter, after Washington had scored on a 66-yard pass from Pickett to receiver Paul Arnold, when the Bruins could have quit. Arnold had faked Joe Hunter -- who had come in for Matt Ware because Ware’s hamstring was killing him -- right out of Husky Stadium, leaving him lying face-down on the field. He lifted his head in time to see Arnold scoring untouched, a touchdown that made the score 27-24 after the Bruins had once led, 27-14. This was when the Bruins could have caved in.

Washington got the ball back twice with a chance to tie with a field goal or win with a touchdown. Bruin players were cramping, even in the cold. They were gasping for air, the ones still able to play. The final stats would show Washington with 31 first downs to UCLA’s 13; 498 total yards to UCLA’s 316, 33 minutes 35 seconds of possession to UCLA’s 26:25.

Twice in a row, though, the Bruin defense held. Once on third and 18 after Ball had sacked Pickett for an 11-yard loss, and again when Havner intercepted Pickett’s fourth-down pass and went 42 yards for the clinching touchdown.

These are plays of heart -- a big sack, a desperate interception, one by a freshman, one by a defeat-hardened junior.

“We don’t have any huge superstars,” Reese said. “Just a bunch of normal guys. The new kids come in, they give the old guys a new perspective. And now the chemistry’s great.”

If this sounds as though the Bruins have taken a page from the Angels’ playbook, that’s not a bad thing.

“The senior leadership has been phenomenal,” Toledo said. “Not one person has quit on us. We lose to Oregon by a point. In the Cal game we lose two quarterbacks and maybe should have won anyway. We’re a team that was very close to having a great season.”

Toledo knows what’s been said about his teams, about how they don’t have the heart or stamina or will to finish strong. He will not take exception. He will only say that things are different, that there is “heart” and there is “chemistry.”

“We can’t change people’s minds by talking,” Manning said. “Opinions only change if we change.”

It will take more than this victory to change minds. The Bruins will have to win at Arizona next weekend and acquit themselves well in home games against USC and Washington State. The Bruins will have to play three more times as if they were playing the most important games ever. Because they are. These three games mean everything to a program that needs its identity changed.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.