Meet the Pressure

If the Stanford defense “brought the house on every play” last week, as one UCLA offensive lineman put it, you can bet Washington State will throw the house, the garage, the front porch and the backyard cabana at the Bruins today.

Much like a hitter who will continue to see curveballs until he proves he can handle the pitch, the UCLA offense probably will see a barrage of blitzes until the Bruins prove they can handle the pressure.

Stanford wreaked havoc on the UCLA offense in last Saturday’s 21-14 victory, using a relentless blitz to sack Bruin quarterback Matt Moore eight times for a loss of 53 yards and disrupt a number of other plays.

And as Washington State Coach Bill Doba said earlier this week, “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out” that attacking and confusing UCLA’s inexperienced offensive line should be on page one of the game plan for Bruin opponents.

“It all depends on the first few blitzes,” said Doba, whose Cougars (7-2, 4-1) rank second in the Pacific 10 Conference against the run (85.2 yards a game) and third against the pass (233.2 yards). “If they work, you’re a blitzing team, and if they throw the ball deep and beat you, all of a sudden you’re not a blitzing team....

“We’re at our best when we bring pressure. The best pass defense is when you put pressure on the line. When the quarterback is on his back, he has a tough time throwing it.”

Moore can attest to that. The UCLA quarterback was hit so hard and so often last week at Stanford that he had to be replaced by backup Drew Olson late in the fourth quarter, in part because Moore was ineffective and in part because he was “woozy” from all the abuse.

The Bruins (6-3, 4-1) have been blitzed regularly, not surprising considering they have a junior starting his first year at left tackle (Steve Vieira), a sophomore starting his first year at right tackle (Ed Blanton), a junior starting his first year at right guard (Paul Mociler) and, after Mike McCloskey suffered a season-ending ankle injury against Washington on Oct. 4, a freshman starting his first year at center (Robert Chai).

But when Coach Karl Dorrell replaced Mociler with freshman Kevin Brown, who converted from defensive tackle to guard before the Oct. 25 Arizona State game, it seemed to trigger an escalation in pressure from opposing defenses. Instead of blitzing often, there were all-out assaults on the quarterback.

“Teams know he’s young, and if there’s a weak link somewhere, they will find a way to attack that link,” Dorrell said of Brown. “Not that he’s weak, but he is new.”

Most of the sacks last week were attributed to a breakdown in communication between linemen; there were some plays in which two Bruins were blocking one defender while another went free.

In an attempt to neutralize the blitz, the Bruins will simplify some of their protection plans against the 12th-ranked Cougars, in hopes that confusion will give way to cohesion.

“We’re not going to back away from what we’ve done in the past, but we’ll go at times from a man-to-man approach to more of a zone, where I pick up this area, you pick up that area, and that helps picking up the blitz,” Vieira said. “I feel real confident. We’ve had a great week of practices, we’re picking up the blitz, we’re picking up the guys we’ve been targeting, we’re not making mistakes ... we’re all on the same page.”

The Bruins, tied with Washington State and USC atop the Pac-10, also hope to change their mental approach. The few teams that have had success moving the ball against the Cougars -- particularly USC last week -- have attacked the Washington State blitz. Instead of reacting to everything the defense does, UCLA wants to go on the offensive.

“We have a really aggressive game plan, and we’re going to get after them,” guard Eyoseph Efseaff said. “We want to establish the run and just flat go. We’re going to attack. We’re not going to sit there and see what happens. That’s our mind-set.”

That, of course, will require a different approach on the part of Dorrell and offensive coordinator Steve Axman, who have been criticized for their conservative play-calling on offense but seem to have no choice but to expand the playbook this week.

Outside of a quick-strike toss to a receiver running a slant pattern, the Bruins had virtually no success countering Stanford’s blitz -- the one draw they ran and the one screen pass they threw were ineffective, and they seemed to abandon tailback Maurice Drew and the running game a little too soon.

But without being specific -- coaches never want to give away any of the game plan, which is why most college football practices are closed -- Dorrell hinted that the Bruins would find ways to offset the blitz.

“We’re going to do whatever it takes for us to be effective,” said Dorrell, whose players have had difficulty absorbing his new West Coast offense this season. “You have to understand, there’s a time element involved in how much you can do and how much you can teach.

“We’ve already laid the foundation, and we can’t go from our offense to the wishbone, for instance. But we have to maximize our strengths as much as possible ....We can design certain things to combat the blitz, and we’ll do what we can to neutralize those issues in the next few games.”