Bruins Say They Have a Bounce in Their Step

After Oklahoma State had run all over UCLA last week, the mood in the Bruin locker room was surprisingly chipper.

Instead of players being angry about giving up 426 yards rushing in an 11-point defeat, the Bruins were upbeat, talking about bouncing back today against Illinois.

UCLA’s offensive performance, which included Manuel White’s career-high 145 yards rushing, was the main source of optimism. The Bruins, atrocious on offense last season, looked as if they were actually operating a West Coast offense in amassing 443 total yards.

“Our confidence is definitely starting to build,” junior center Mike McCloskey said. “The offensive line really jelled.... There were times when both running and passing the ball was working for us.

“In the huddle, you saw the same faces and everything looked the same, but there definitely was a difference. There was just an aura of confidence that we seemed to know that whatever we were going to call was going to work. It was a good feeling.”

Whether UCLA, which has lost six consecutive games dating to last season, will be facing a legitimate defensive test today is uncertain.

Illinois, which finished 1-11 last season, opened the season with a 52-13 victory over Florida A&M;, and the Rattlers, a Division I-AA team, rushed for only 71 yards. That was the first time the Fighting Illini had held an opponent under 100 yards since Oct. 26, 2002.

Key defensive players for Illinois were converted cornerback Kelvin Hayden and sixth-year defensive end Mike O’Brien. Hayden, who played wide receiver last season, intercepted two passes and forced a fumble. O’Brien, who sat out the last 11 games a year ago because of a knee injury, had two tackles and recovered a fumble.

“This should be a good test for us,” UCLA Coach Karl Dorrell said. “We feel good about where we are, but we still have a lot of work to do.”

A year ago, the Bruins defeated Illinois, 6-3, and even with White rushing for 102 yards, had only 204 yards in total offense. UCLA is expecting a better showing today.

“It really doesn’t matter who we’re playing because we feel we can dominate anybody,” senior wide receiver Tab Perry said. “We just have to eliminate our mistakes. We had a good week of practice where we’ve worked on taking care of the ball.”

Turnovers were the Bruins’ downfall against Oklahoma State. Quarterback Drew Olson threw two interceptions and Craig Bragg and Maurice Drew each fumbled.

But after the way the Bruins’ attack crawled to a stop last season, last Saturday’s numbers gave UCLA reason to smile.

“We were upset that we didn’t win, but we knew that we controlled the game,” McCloskey said. “That’s something that did not happen too often in the past. We know now that we have what it takes to win and that’s what we were happy with.”

When Dorrell hired Tom Cable as offensive coordinator and line coach, his goal was to create offensive balance. Last week, UCLA rushed for 191 yards and passed for 252.

But ... Olson missed more than his share of throws and had a couple of passes dropped in completing only 16 of 36. Sophomore tailback Maurice Drew, who caught three passes for 92 yards, averaged only 3.7 yards a carry in rushing for 49 yards.

Tight end Marcedes Lewis, a key to UCLA’s offense this season, caught only two passes. Perry caught one pass for zero yards and Junior Taylor did not catch any, although several were thrown his way.

“We had over 200 yards of offense in the first half last week, and that’s pretty good,” Perry said. “But we all know that we could have done a lot better. We know we should have won that game.... Our offense is going to continue to get better. We just have to pay attention to the little things so that we can open up the offense a lot more.”