Bruins Say It’s No History Rehash

Could it be that things are finally catching up to a UCLA team that, for all these weeks, has been getting by with its bend-but-don’t-break style of play?

Are the Bruins, who have improved on offense, going to be dragged down by a defense that had gone, in a year’s time, from incredibly strong to glaringly suspect?

Perhaps the most obvious question facing the Bruins, who seemed to have things well in hand Saturday before falling to No. 21 Arizona State, 48-42, is whether this is starting to feel like last season all over again.

Last season, after a 6-2 start, the Bruins lost their last five games to finish 7-6. They became more demoralized after each defeat. Now they are 4-3 and losers of two in a row. Their team spirit was intact a week ago against then-No. 8-ranked California, but the heads hung low in the visitor’s locker room Saturday.

The Bruins had bent plenty but also did some bending themselves in opening a 42-31 lead with 5 minutes 27 seconds remaining.

But then the breaking began.

Andrew Walter picked the Bruin secondary apart down the stretch, and his 65-yard touchdown pass to Terry Richardson gave Arizona State a 45-42 lead with 4:51 left.

Three plays later, Dale Robinson intercepted a Drew Olson pass and returned it to the Bruin eight, and four plays after that a Jesse Ainsworth field goal with 3:13 remaining provided the last scoring -- and after the game certain realities presented themselves like a defensive end in the face of a quarterback.

The Bruins, who had been making superstars of running backs on a weekly basis but had given up few big plays, held the Sun Devils to 121 yards rushing. But they seemed to give up one big play after another.

Arizona State was 10 of 21 on third-down conversions, most coming on pass plays. The Bruins frustrated Walter often, and his completion percentage was less than 50% (25 of 51), but he ended up with 415 yards and six touchdowns.

The Bruins gave up 536 yards.

“I think we stressed stopping the run too much,” safety Jarrad Page said. “We ended up giving up too many big plays passing, and that’s not our defensive forte. We left our [cornerbacks] out there a lot, one on one, when we didn’t get a touch on the quarterback. And when you don’t put pressure on the quarterback, that’s tough.”

Coach Karl Dorrell said in the interview room, “This one hurt.” But he also vowed that the Bruins “will bounce back next week” against Stanford at the Rose Bowl.

Just how painful was it?

Safety Ben Emanuel, who had a team-high 10 tackles, said that it always hurts to lose, “but it hurts a lot more when you lose to people that you know you’re better than. Then it hurts extra.”

Though dejected in defeat, the Bruins maintained that it was far too early to make comparisons to last year’s team. And that this year’s team would not fold.

“The team does a good job of having a short-term memory,” linebacker Wesley Walker said. “I don’t think rebounding will be a problem like it has been in the past.”

Page pointed out that the Bruins had trailed, 21-10, late in the second quarter, and rallied to tie the score midway through the third quarter and take their first lead late in the period.

“We’re down 21-10 last year, I don’t see us coming back,” he said. “But this team is just not that way. I don’t see it on their faces. It wasn’t that we had bad players last year, but we have a better team this year. We built this team since spring football. It’s a much tighter team.”

But one, he acknowledged, with some serious issues.