Olson: ‘Everything Went Wrong’

After guiding UCLA into Arizona territory on the Bruins’ first possession, Drew Olson threw an incomplete pass, eluded a blitz for a one-yard gain and completed a pass to Marcedes Lewis for a four-yard gain on third and nine.

That turned out to be one of the more productive sequences for the senior quarterback Saturday at Arizona Stadium.

Wildcat defenders nearly intercepted an Olson pass on each of the Bruins’ next two drives, each lasting four plays. On UCLA’s fourth possession, Olson managed to complete a pass for a first down before the Bruins had to punt again.

By the time Olson touched the ball again, early in the second quarter, UCLA faced a 28-0 deficit.

Been here, won that? Not this time. Olson’s charmed season vanished into the desert air as the Wildcats pounced on him repeatedly, sacking him four times and precluding any late heroics during a 52-14 victory over the seventh-ranked Bruins.

“I’m just frustrated to put up a performance like that,” said Olson, who completed 23 of 38 passes for 232 yards and two touchdowns. “It just started to snowball and everything went wrong.”

Olson wasn’t the only one having a tough time. Running back Maurice Drew gained 41 yards in 12 carries and the offensive line was pushed around.

“Everyone from the quarterback to the offensive line to the running backs, it was a complete team effort,” Olson said of the inability to move the ball.

The low point came midway through the second quarter. With UCLA already facing a 28-point deficit, Olson had scrambled to set up a fourth-and-one situation at the Arizona six-yard line. Olson took the handoff from center Robert Chai and tried to push ahead behind Chai and guard Shannon Tevaga only to be stuffed for no gain.

“You’ve got what you want there,” offensive coordinator Tom Cable said of the fourth-down scenario deep in Wildcat territory. “We lunged and didn’t get it.”

The early deficit was nothing new for a Bruin team that has trailed in each of its last seven games. But this time something seemed different.

“It felt different because we weren’t able to get anything going,” Lewis said.

Said Olson: “I was waiting for it to click in the first quarter. We just came out and played flat and when you do that, you get beat.”

Olson finally engineered a scoring drive on UCLA’s sixth possession, pulling the score to 28-7 on a 10-yard touchdown pass to Lewis.

UCLA, which had rallied from a 21-point deficit last week against Stanford with 8 minutes 26 seconds left to play, still had more than 32 minutes to work its comeback magic.

But the Bruins managed only one first down on their first three drives of the second half before Olson made an ill-fated lateral to tailback Chris Markey. The ball squirted off Markey’s hands and was recovered by Arizona in the end zone for a touchdown and a 52-7 lead.

“It seemed like every time we made a step in the right direction, we matched it with a bad play,” said Lewis, who caught 11 passes for 131 yards.

Olson’s 16-yard touchdown pass to Lewis in the fourth quarter was his 25th scoring pass of the season, tying him with Cade McNown for first on the school’s single-season list. But the statistical accolade was no consolation on a night the Bruins lost their bid for an undefeated season.

“It was bound to catch up with us the more we played like that, and we knew that too,” Olson said of UCLA’s continued slow starts. “That’s what’s disappointing.”