Many Are Cast in Roles on Defense

UCLA included 12 defensive linemen on its 64-player travel roster for today’s game at Washington, which will kick off the Pacific 10 Conference schedule for both teams.

Coach Karl Dorrell said that at least for now, the Bruins will continue to use a large number of players on the defensive front.

“They are not getting a lot of plays, which is the one bad thing of playing so many guys there,” said Dorrell, who will be seeking his second consecutive victory over the Huskies after the Bruins defeated them, 46-16, last season.

“There’s not much continuity getting done. It’s hard to play so many.... Soon, we’re going to have to home in on the players who are not making so many mistakes. Those are the guys who we will end up hanging our hats with. But we’re still working our way through that.”

UCLA is expected to start Justin Hickman and Bruce Davis at end and Kevin Brown and C.J. Niusulu at tackle. But they will split time with an assortment of players, including Brigham Harwell and Kyle Morgan.

Dorrell said that he feels better heading into today’s game with Justin London making his first start at middle linebacker. London, who missed the first game because of a high ankle sprain, played last week at Illinois but was less than 100%.

“The louder he is, the better he feels,” Dorrell said about London. “We’re happy to have him back.”

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Washington Coach Keith Gilbertson on UCLA: “I have an idea how good UCLA is because just about every kid on that team, we, in some fashion, have tried to recruit. I know their talent, we’ve coached against a lot of these people. [Spencer] Havner, [Ben] Emmanuel, [Jarrad] Page and [Matt] Clark, defensively it seems like we have coached against forever. Offensively, with the skill they have, the two tailbacks, tight end, they have quality athletes. I don’t know them all personally, I know them all through trying to recruit them or evaluating them coming out of high school. They have quality athletes.”