Morency, Cowboys Had Bruins Sized Up

Word had obviously spread that UCLA had a defensive line short on size and experience. Oklahoma State came into the Rose Bowl for Saturday’s game with the same plan a lot of teams will employ against the Bruins: run, run again and run some more.

Vernand Morency, a junior tailback who couldn’t make it in professional baseball, knew what this meant for him. He slept in his cleats Friday night -- he was that eager to get to work.

Before taking the field, he wrote a number on a piece of paper -- the rushing yardage total he hoped to attain Saturday -- and stashed it in his shoe.

Then it came time to play and, after the Bruins fumbled on their first possession, Operation Morency was put into action. To the surprise of very few, the plan worked.

Morency scampered for a gain of 14 yards on the Cowboys’ first play from scrimmage to set the stage for what would transpire over the rest of a long, hot afternoon in Pasadena.

He gave Oklahoma State a 6-0 lead early in the first quarter with a 22-yard run up the middle, and received little rest thereafter. By day’s end he had amassed 261 yards in 29 carries as the Cowboys defeated UCLA, 31-20, before 48,702 fans -- who now know as well as the Bruins where their biggest problem lies.

After the game, UCLA Coach Karl Dorrell acknowledged that a defensive line that includes mostly freshmen and sophomores has some “growing up to do” and that it had better grow up in a hurry.

He called Morency, who stands 5 feet 10 and weighs 215 pounds, “probably as good a back as we’re going to face all season,” and if that’s true it will come as the best news the Bruins could receive.

Morency, 24, who struggled for three seasons in the minor leagues with the Colorado Rockies before finding his way to Oklahoma State, discovered holes so large, “You could fit a big old Cadillac truck through,” he said with a smile after the game.

He was quick to praise the Bruins for their effort, however ineffective, and even quicker to credit his massive offensive line, mostly returnees from last season’s 9-4 team. “All I saw all day long were the names on the backs of their jerseys,” he said.

Indeed, Morency’s gains came in large chunks -- his longest was a 38-yard sprint deep into Bruin territory on a misdirection pitch from quarterback Donovan Woods late in the third quarter -- as his linemen not only bullied the Bruin linemen, but seemed to almost make them disappear at times.

In all, Bruin coaches mixed and matched 10 defensive linemen in an attempt to find an effective combination.

“We could tell from the first play at the line of scrimmage that they didn’t look like they were ready to play the game of football,” said Sam Mays, a 6-foot-3, 330-pound Cowboy guard. “I was impressed with their speed and lateral movement, but they needed a lot more than that.”

Oklahoma State compiled 426 yards rushing, compared to 23 yards passing for Woods, a redshirt freshman who completed only two of eight passes.

Morency, who gained 165 yards in the first half, fell short of his career high of 269 yards, gained last season against Kansas.

He also admitted, with reluctance, that he failed to attain the number he had written on the piece of paper he had placed in his shoe -- a number he refused to divulge.

“It was just a goal I set for myself, like the ones we set as a team,” he said. “We like to set high goals for ourselves.”