These aren’t the Bruins of old
TUCSON — They may have lost a piece of their heart, but something plenty powerful still beats.
They may have lost a big chunk of backbone, but something awfully strong still stands.
The UCLA football team, battered and booed and still not quite believed, showed up in the desert against 16th-ranked Arizona on Saturday with a message to those still waiting for the same old bitten Bruins. Keep waiting. Three defensive starters gone? Thousands of red-shirted fans screaming? Soaring temperatures suffocating?
Josh Rosen throws a high strike that Thomas Duarte pulls down with one hand and carries through three tacklers for a touch-
down.
Paul Perkins jukes two guys out of their shoes and rumbles for another touchdown.
Rosen lobs a perfect pass over a defender to Jordan Payton for yet another touchdown.
Red shiny helmets go dull. Cackling and howling from the ZonaZoo goes quiet. The harsh sun is replaced by a glowing full moon. A nasty night turns nice.
Yeah, keep waiting, this version of the Bruins is too skilled and deep to stumble back into their worst fears just yet. In an overwhelming 56-30 victory over the previously unbeaten Wildcats on Saturday, ninth-ranked and still unbeaten UCLA showed it is good enough not only to win in one of the conference’s most hostile environments, but could also be good enough to — dare we say? — survive its own sordid history.
“We talked all week about being able to respond to a hostile environment, to a really good Arizona team, to the loss of our key players, and I thought our young men responded really well,” said Coach Jim Mora.
Face it, when it was announced last week that linebacker Myles Jack was lost for the season because of a knee injury, many folks thought it was the meniscus on the Bruins’ season that had been torn.
The combined seasonending injury losses of veterans Jack, cornerback Fabian Moreau and defensive lineman Eddie Vanderdoes meant the Bruins defense would be missing the experience of 76 starts. The kid quarterback Rosen was coming off a threeinterception game against Brigham Young.
Then they traveled here, where ESPN’s popular pregame show “GameDay” on Saturday morning featured homemade fan signs crudely ridiculing Rosen while one of the show’s hosts, Lee Corso, wore a Wildcats mascot head in announcing his pregame pick.
“I thought some of the college posters were pretty funny,” Rosen said. “You can’t be [offended].”
But then the game began and, in a 10-play Arizona drive, every UCLA terror was realized. The Wildcats stuffed the ball up the middle against the seemingly short-handed UCLA defense, and the Bruins trailed by a touchdown before three minutes had run off the clock.
In previous incarnations — remember the 52-14 loss suffered by the 8-0 UCLA team here a decade ago? — that drive would have been the beginning of the end. But for these Bruins, it was the end of the beginning.
Quickly, powerfully, they responded with their own two-minute touchdown drive. Was the true freshman Rosen rattled? Not after he scrambled for 10 yards on third down on that drive, he wasn’t.
Said Rosen: “I thought it was pretty important… I had to put my head down and fight for it.”
Added offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone with a laugh: “I wish he would stinking slide, though.”
Were the skill players sweating? Not after Duarte’s one-handed grab for a 35yard touchdown pass, they weren’t.
“I didn’t want it to appear to anyone on our team that the environment affected us,” Mora said. “The most impressive thing our offense did was respond to that first Arizona drive.”
From there, the Bruins overpowered the Wildcats at every edge, from every angle. They recovered two fumbles, grabbed an interception, and continually powered across a turf into which the words “Bear Down” were optimistically painted, yet appropriately appeared faded.
After Ishmael Adams’ interception led to a brilliant 59-yard scrambling pass from Rosen to Payton, the Bruins scored on a Perkins one-yard run to make it 42-14, and guess what? There was still 3:08 left in the first half, and the game was essentially over.
“Our kids are a hardnosed group,” said Mazzone. “They love the challenge.”
Of course, Mora wasn’t thrilled with everything. He never is. His defense allowed 353 rushing yards and, even though Arizona ran the ball 59 times and clearly targeted the absence of Jack, Mora wasn’t hearing excuses.
“For a team to be able to run the ball like that on us, it’s inconceivable, I’ve never seen anything like it, it makes me sick to my stomach,” Mora said. “We don’t expect to ever, ever, ever get the ball run on us like that, ever, ever.”
For those keeping score, that’s five “evers.”
But also those keeping score, the Bruins just dominated a football game that some thought they could never, ever, ever win.
If Saturday was any indication, the 4-0 Bruins should be strong enough to hang in similar games on the road at Stanford, Utah and Arizona later this season. If Saturday was any indication, these Bruins are just strong, period.
Strong enough, maybe. Stronger than most thought, absolutely.