Bruins Look to Roll a 7 Against Beavers

Three years ago, Karl Dorrell and Mike Riley were finalists for the UCLA head coaching position. Dorrell won out and Riley ended up being hired at Oregon State.

Today, they will coach against each other for the first time when the eighth-ranked Bruins play the Beavers in a Pacific 10 Conference game at the Rose Bowl.

“They are a team that’s playing with confidence,” Riley said of the Bruins, who are 6-0 overall, 3-0 in conference. “They have a good feeling about themselves and about what they’ve done. You can just see it happening. That’s a team having fun and they don’t appear to rattle.”

The Bruins, who have not been 7-0 since 1998, have three consecutive come-from-behind victories.

They are sixth in the nation in scoring, averaging 43.3 points a game featuring several players in the hunt for national awards as the best at their positions: running back Maurice Drew (Maxwell and Doak Walker Awards), quarterback Drew Olson (Unitas Award), tight end Marcedes Lewis (Mackey Award), center Mike McCloskey (Rimington Trophy) and kicker Justin Medlock (Groza Award).

“They are very balanced,” Riley said. “They have a great runner and they have a good offensive line ... and Olson is doing a real good job with their passing game.”

Although the coaches did not face each other the last two seasons, Riley held an edge over Dorrell heading into this year.

Riley had a 15-10 record and back-to-back bowl victories; Dorrell was 12-13 and had consecutive bowl defeats.

But this season, the Beavers (4-2 overall and 2-1 in the Pac 10) are chasing the Bruins, who are among only seven remaining undefeated Division I-A teams.

“We’ve been opportunistic,” Dorrell said. “We’ve been able to take advantage of the opportunities that we’ve had in scoring situations. That’s been big and we’re getting a lot of takeaways.”

However, Dorrell was quick to add, “We can be so much better than we are. ... We have a lot of potential to improve and possibly be a great team” at the end of the season.

The Bruins have needed late rallies because of poor execution early against Washington State, California and Washington, an issue Dorrell addressed all week.

“We haven’t been having good starts, and when I say that, I mean playing good sound football,” Dorrell said. “That doesn’t mean scoring a touchdown every time we have the football. It’s about being effective and not having as many mental errors.”

Last week at Washington State, UCLA fell behind, 21-0. The week before, the Bruins trailed Cal, 27-14, late in the first half. Three weeks ago, Washington led, 10-0, at halftime.

“We just have to come out and execute, it can’t be any simpler than that,” Olson said. “We have to be more focused on detail early in games.”

Another issue for the Bruins is their defense against the run. UCLA ranks last in the Pac-10, giving up an average of 229.7 yards a game on the ground. In the Bruins’ last three games, opponents have combined to rush for 873 yards.

The Bruins figure to have their hands full again against Oregon State’s Yvenson Bernard, the fifth-leading rusher in the Pac-10.

Bernard rushed for a career-high 194 yards in the Beavers’ 23-20 upset at Cal last week.

“They had a great plan and stuck to it and he ran very, very well,” Dorrell said. “He has quick feet and great vision. He’s also durable and has some toughness to him. He earned every bit of the yardage he gained against Cal.”

UCLA players say they are happy with their start but know they will have to improve each week if they hope to be champions at the end of the season.

“It’s fun as long as we can keep it going,” senior offensive guard Robert Cleary said. “I mean, come on. You can’t have a better start than 6-0. We know what we have to do, and that’s not worry about next week or the week after. We have to worry about today.”