Defense Rallies Around the Bend

Arizona limped into the Rose Bowl on Saturday with one of the nation’s poorest offenses, ranked 112th out of 117 Division I-A teams.

Yet that meant little to the Wildcats, who ran like deer against UCLA, which has one of the poorest overall defenses -- ranked 96th -- and is downright rank against the run, at 113th.

Mike Bell tore through the Bruins 21 times and finished with 134 yards. Harris Gilbert rushed for 74 yards and Chris Henry had 55 yards and two touchdowns.

But in the end, that meant little to the Bruins, who have made a habit of overcoming this glaring deficiency

When dusk turned to darkness and another game was in the books, they were the ones celebrating, having tamed the Wildcats, 37-17.

“They’re not knocking people dead, but they’re doing their job,” defensive coordinator Larry Kerr said of his much-maligned unit, and of the front line in particular. “In this day and age in offensive football, if you can hold people to 17 points, that’s pretty good defense. Yardage is one thing; it’s points that matter.”

Of course, he acknowledged, the nation’s 10th-ranked offense has given the defense a great deal of breathing room.

But one thing has become clear: The UCLA defense, with its young and inexperienced front line, has shown something that doesn’t show in the box scores. Coach Karl Dorrell calls it character. Other coaches have called it heart. Players call it a togetherness born of the criticism they’ve been hearing often since being run over by Oklahoma State and running back Vernand Morency in a season-opening 31-20 loss.

Whatever it’s called, it seems to be working.

While the Wildcats were able to rush for 258 yards, more than half of which came in the first half, the Bruin defense held them to three points before the intermission, while watching happily as their offense scored 23 points.

“I wanted to hold them to only three points for the game. I didn’t want them to score again,” said linebacker Spencer Havner, an eternal optimist. “But the big thing is that we came together as a team.”

It is a team, he agreed, that may not be very good at filling the gaps through which opponents like to run, but one that is growing accustomed to making key stops at key moments. Although the defense weakened in the second half, the Wildcats never really threatened to make the game close.

Most of that was due to Havner, who had a team-high 10 tackles. But the Bruins received help from others. Safeties Ben Emanuel and Jarrad Page had six and four tackles, respectively. Linebacker Wesley Walker also had four.

And the return of fiery linebacker Justin London, who got his first significant playing time since suffering an ankle sprain before the season began, seemed to inspire the unit whenever he was on the field.

“He’s the heart and soul of our defense,” Havner said.

Together, they were strong against the pass, holding Wildcat quarterback Kris Heavner to 93 yards.

The Bruins will need a lot of heart from now on, as they enter the meat of their schedule. They play at California on Saturday and travel to Tempe to play Arizona State the following week.

They may be satisfied with the way things have worked out so far, but they’re keenly aware that all the togetherness in the world isn’t going to help a team that is simply overmatched, no matter how effective its offense is.

Nobody needed to point out to Kerr that his linemen combined for only four tackles against the Wildcats.

“It was a poor-tackling game for us and usually when you tackle like that you’re not going to win a lot of games,” he said. “We will tackle better than that because that is not acceptable.

“Not against a team like Cal.”