Bears Pull Rank on Bruins

By the time darkness arrived at Memorial Stadium on Saturday night, UCLA’s dream of an upset victory over eighth-ranked California was nothing but a distant memory.

Quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the Bears’ dominant run defense made sure of that.

With Rodgers throwing a career-high four touchdown passes and UCLA rushing for a season-low 79 yards, Cal defeated the Bruins, 45-28, before 69,898, the largest crowd for a non-Stanford home game since 1991.

“They took advantage of some situations when we made a mistake and that’s what good football teams do,” said Coach Karl Dorrell, whose Bruins suffered their first Pacific 10 Conference defeat and also had their four-game winning streak ended.

In amassing 550 total yards, Cal (4-1 overall and 2-1 in Pac-10) featured senior running back J.J. Arrington (205 yards rushing and two touchdowns), senior wide receiver Geoff McArthur (163 yards receiving and two touchdowns) and Rodgers (260 yards passing).

But the Bruins (4-2) certainly gave a good fight behind Drew Olson, who completed 20 of 36 passes for 299 yards and matched a personal best with four touchdown passes of his own.

“The first quarter was really the only time when I felt that we were stagnant,” said Olson, who completed passes to seven receivers. “We made a lot of plays with our passing game, but we didn’t do enough good things to win.”

UCLA, which played without defensive lineman C.J. Niusulu (sidelined because of a swollen ankle), spotted Cal a 14-0 lead on scores by McArthur and Arrington before making a second-quarter rally.

With Olson completing touchdown passes to Marcedes Lewis and Maurice Drew, the Bruins tied the score at 14. But they failed to take their momentum into halftime when the Bears scored a touchdown with 17 seconds remaining in the second quarter.

UCLA was hurt by two plays on Cal’s final drive of the first half. On fourth and six from the Bruins’ 36, Rodgers completed a 10-yard pass to McArthur. Rodgers then capped the possession with a perfect touch pass to tight end Garrett Cross, who made a diving catch in the end zone to give Cal a 21-14 lead at the break.

The Bruins, who did not record a first down until the second quarter, began the third quarter like they started the game and punted after three plays.

That’s all Cal needed to stretch its lead to two touchdowns again. Thanks to an unsportsmanlike penalty called on UCLA, the Bears had to drive only 45 yards and scored on Rodgers’ 27-yard touchdown pass to Marshawn Lynch to take a 28-14 lead.

“They made plays when they had to, especially when we had a chance to get their offense off the field,” UCLA defensive tackle Kevin Brown said. “Rodgers is the real deal. He’s really accurate with his throws and has good mobility.”

On UCLA’s next possession, Olson’s passing and Manuel White’s running drove the Bruins to Cal’s 10-yard line. But on fourth and one, White was stuffed by a gang of tacklers and lost two yards.

“They did what we expected them to do, we just had a hard time getting our running game going for whatever reason,” UCLA center Mike McCloskey said. “It was just a case of one guy missing a block and messing everything up. “

Early in the fourth quarter, Cal took a 35-14 lead on a play that ended any hopes for a UCLA comeback.

With the Bears backed up deep in their own territory, Rodgers completed a short pass to McArthur, who turned it into an 80-yard touchdown. McArthur avoided a tackle by freshman Rodney Van, who came into the game after starting cornerback Marcus Cassel was beaten on Lynch’s touchdown, and then ran down the sideline in front of the Bruins’ bench to the end zone.

“I thought we played pretty good defense in the first half, but in the second half, we played hard but just didn’t finish our tackles,” freshman defensive end Brigham Harwell said. “They made some big plays on us and that was the difference.”

To the Bruins’ credit, they did not quit after falling behind by 21 points. Olson threw for two more scores, a 43-yarder to Drew and a 46-yarder to Joe Cowan, but UCLA wasn’t able to keep the Bears from the end zone.

Tom Schneider kicked a 28-yard field goal and Arrington finished off his day with a nine-yard touchdown run for Cal, which finished with 26 first downs.

“This was a learning experience for us,” said Dorrell, whose team plays at Arizona State next week. “We’re a young team. It was good for us. But you have to have balance. We weren’t able to make plays like we’re accustomed to. Our defense made more plays than our offense did. That’s not what you want.... When you’re playing against a good team like this, you can’t make mistakes.”