Olson Is Solid While Others Are Spectacular

Running back Maurice Drew and tight end Marcedes Lewis were nearly unstoppable, but somewhat lost in UCLA’s 44-21 opening victory over San Diego State on Saturday night at Qualcomm Stadium was the steady play of senior quarterback Drew Olson.

In his first game since suffering a major knee injury in the Las Vegas Bowl, Olson completed 10 of 15 passes for 152 yards. He made some good throws and a couple of bad ones, but he did not have any interceptions.

“I felt real confident. When plays needed to be made, they were made,” said Olson, who completed six of seven passes for 99 yards on first downs. “Other than that, it was not much of a passing game.”

USC senior quarterback Matt Leinart “changed 20 plays” at the line of scrimmage in the Trojans’ win at Hawaii on Saturday, but Olson rarely got that chance against San Diego State because of the time it took for UCLA to get a play called.

The Bruins had one delay-of-game penalty and were once forced to call a timeout because of the problem, which also was an issue at times last season.

“It wasn’t the best performance ... but it was pretty good for the first night,” Coach Karl Dorrell said. “We can get a whole lot better, and that’s the exciting thing. We have some work to do in all our areas.”

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Senior tackle Ed Blanton delivered impressive blocks on two first-half plays that led to touchdowns against the Aztecs.

On the Bruins’ first play from scrimmage, the coaching staff chose to run behind Blanton and guard Chris Joseph instead of the strong-side tandem of guard Shannon Tevaga and tackle Brian Abraham. They responded, and Drew scored on a 64-yard run to give UCLA a 7-0 lead.

After San Diego State closed to within 7-6, UCLA faced fourth and goal from the Aztec one after three unsuccessful runs. Instead of opting for a field goal, the Bruins again ran Drew behind Blanton and Joseph for a touchdown.

But even though the Bruins rushed for 191 yards and averaged 5.4 yards an attempt, Blanton said, “As a team we had a good start, but as an offensive line we still have a lot of improvement. We have a lot of work to do. It’s good that we had some success, but we made a ton of mistakes.”

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The Bruins will play their second consecutive night game Saturday against Rice at the Rose Bowl with a 7 o’clock kickoff.

It will be the first game of the season for Rice, which has moved from the Western Athletic Conference to Conference USA. The Owls, who have not played UCLA since 1966, have changed from a run-based option attack to a shotgun-influenced spread offense.

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Dorrell on the Bruins’ opening victory: “We showed some of the signs of being a very good offense. It was not as clean as we would like it to be, but we did some great things out there.

“Defensively, we made some plays early and had some takeaways, which allowed our offense to take advantage of the things our defense did to create scoring opportunities.”

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Starting wide receivers Junior Taylor and Joe Cowan did not catch a pass Saturday, but they blocked well.

On Drew’s first touchdown, blocks by Taylor and Cowan helped to clear a path and prevent two defensive backs from making a tackle.