Bruins Lower Boomer

Senior quarterback Drew Olson stood by his locker with a satisfied expression of a student who aced an exam for the first time after UCLA’s 41-24 victory over No. 21 Oklahoma on Saturday afternoon at the Rose Bowl.

With the Sooners determined to stop Maurice Drew and the Bruins’ running attack, Olson made them pay by completing 28 of 38 passes for 314 yards and three touchdowns to move UCLA to 3-0.

“We knew they were going to try to make us beat them with the pass,” said Olson, who has thrown six touchdown passes without an interception this season. “It’s good to see the passing game open things up when the running game shuts down a little bit.”

As the Bruins scored more than 40 points for the third consecutive game, Olson was the catalyst, completing passes to 10 receivers, including touchdowns to Andrew Baumgartner, Marcedes Lewis and Chris Markey.

Drew, held in check for most of the game, scored one touchdown and finished with 69 yards in 15 carries, and Justin Medlock two made field goals from beyond 40 yards before a crowd of 56,522.

Oklahoma (1-2) helped the Bruins’ cause with six fumbles, losing three of them, including one that UCLA linebacker Spencer Havner returned 13 yards for a touchdown.

“It wasn’t a perfect game,” Coach Karl Dorrell said about UCLA’s first victory over Oklahoma in four tries. “We needed the opportunities to make some big stops, and these guys responded and showed great heart and character.”

Although this year’s Oklahoma team has dropped off from years past under Coach Bob Stoops, the Sooners were supposed to give UCLA its toughest test of the season because of Heisman Trophy candidate Adrian Peterson.

But Peterson, who did not start as a punishment for missing class, was never really a factor against the Bruins’ swarming defense. Peterson scored one touchdown and finished with 58 yards in 23 carries.

“He’s big, strong and fast, but there are a lot of backs who are big, strong and fast,” UCLA defensive end Justin Hickman said about Peterson. “But we just dominated the line of scrimmage. We were in our gaps and we stayed disciplined.”

The Bruins began the game as if they were ready to shred the Sooners’ defense behind Olson’s passing. On UCLA’s first drive, Olson completed four of six passes for 52 yards, but the Bruins did not get any points when Medlock missed a 41-yard field-goal attempt.

The Sooners did not have that problem the first time they touched the ball, scoring a touchdown on a well-designed play that featured Peterson as a decoy.

After watching Peterson enter the game for the first time, UCLA’s defense overcommitted to stop him and Travis Wilson ran 56 yards on a reverse to give Oklahoma a 7-0 lead.

The Bruins were struggling, but their big break came when Oklahoma’s Lendy Holmes mishandled a punt that was recovered by the Bruins’ Michael Norris at the Sooner 19. On the next play, Olson completed a touchdown pass to Baumgartner.

The Bruins received their next gift from the Sooners late in the first quarter when safety Dennis Keyes forced Peterson to fumble and William Snead recovered at the Oklahoma 33. That set up a 44-yard field goal by Medlock, who added a 51-yarder in the second quarter to give the Bruins a 13-7 lead at halftime.

“That’s not fair to UCLA to say that we gave it away,” Stoops said. “They took it away and we gave it away, however you want to put it.”

In the second half, it was Oklahoma redshirt freshman Rhett Bomar, who dropped the football four times in the game, who gave it up to the Bruins.

On a blitz from Bomar’s blindside, Keyes forced the Sooner quarterback to fumble and Havner did the rest with his fourth career touchdown.

Trailing, 20-10, Oklahoma didn’t quit. The Sooners made things interesting when Peterson scored on an 11-yard run to cut UCLA’s lead to 20-17 late in the third quarter.

That’s when Olson took over. He led the Bruins on a 13-play, 83-yard drive that ate up nearly six minutes. Olson completed key third-down passes to Baumgartner and Brandon Breazell and then capped the drive with a third-down 19-yard touchdown pass to Lewis to give the Bruins a 27-17 lead early in the fourth.

From there, the Bruin defense took over, stopping Oklahoma on fourth down when Peterson was left knocking the ball out of bounds to get away from being tackled.

“You could tell we were frustrating him out there,” Hickman said. “There were runs when he wanted to bounce outside, but we were getting enough push so he didn’t have any room.... It was fun watching him having tantrums on the sideline.”

The Bruins put the game away on their next possession when Olson completed a seven-yard pass to Markey to stretch the lead to 34-17 midway in the final quarter.

After Oklahoma’s Bomar scrambled for a 16-yard touchdown, UCLA closed out the scoring with Drew’s sixth touchdown of the season.

“We talked early in the preseason about being in this position,” said Dorrell, whose Bruins are off next week. “Being 2-0 going into today’s game and being 3-0 at the end of our non-conference schedule. We needed to prove to ourselves that we could win even without our best execution.”

A job that was made easier thanks to Olson.

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Stepping up

This is UCLA’s third season under Coach Karl Dorrell. A look at the first three games of each of those seasons:

*--* 2003 Opponent Rec. at Colorado 16, UCLA 14 0-1 UCLA 6, Illinois 3 1-1 at No. 3 Oklahoma 59, UCLA 24 1-2 2004 Oklahoma State 31, UCLA 20 0-1 UCLA 35, at Illinois 17 1-1 UCLA 37, at Washington 31 2-1 2005 UCLA 44, at San Diego State 21 1-0 UCLA 63, Rice 21 2-0 UCLA 41, No. 21 Oklahoma 24 3-0

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KEYS TO THE GAME

Lonnie White’s keys to the game, and how the Bruins measured up:

1. Gang-tackle Peterson: The Bruins did a great job of slowing Oklahoma tailback Adrian Peterson, who finished with 58 yards in 23 carries.

2. Make big plays: The Bruins had plenty of positive plays, but their longest was Maurice Drew’s 38-yard run in the fourth quarter.

3. Avoid punting: After punting only three times over the first two games, UCLA’s Aaron Perez punted five times, three times in the first quarter.