football players

Monday, October 20, 1997

And the Beavers make five

FOOTBALL Despite a rough performance against Oregon State, the
Bruins continue their streak,

By Vytas Mazeika

Daily Bruin Staff

The old saying "winning isn’t everything" is something UCLA
doesn’t quite believe in.

The Bruin football team won its fifth consecutive game on
Saturday and looks like it’s ill-bent on not losing a game for the
remainder of the season.

UCLA head coach Bob Toledo seems to be the most excited of all.
The Bruins (5-2, 3-1 Pac-10) overcame a sluggish start from the
offensive unit and eventually pulled away from Oregon State to
record a 34-10 victory. This marks the first time since 1993 that
UCLA has won five games in a row during the season.

"There is no such thing as an ugly win," Toledo said. "(This
win) was beautiful. That was a beautiful victory for us. Anytime
you win it’s good."

Things did not start so "beautifully" for UCLA as the Beavers
(3-3, 0-3) drove down the field for 79 yards in 14 plays. A drive
that took almost six minutes off the clock finished only with a
28-yard field goal by Jose Cortez.

But the Bruin defense cleaned up their act, shutting down OSU’s
offense for the rest of the game. By the time the Beaver’s Tyler
Tomich threw a touchdown pass with 1:09 left in the fourth quarter,
UCLA had scored six times en route to breaking the game wide
open.

OSU junior sensation Tim Alexander did all he could to put
points on the board though. Alexander, who starts at quarterback
and plays a little tailback and flanker, could be the next Kordell
Stewart due to his versatility. But the Bruins managed to contain
him to 31 yards on the ground, nine receiving and 127 in the air.
Nevertheless, OSU did manage to out-gain the Bruins in yardage
221-120 in the first half.

"They didn’t have a lot of yards throwing at half, but they were
frustrating yards," Toledo said. "They were yards that were
short-pass-type yards. They threw the hitch and then they’d run it
for seven or eight yards. So my suggestion at half-time was to play
a little bump-and-run, and take away that short passing game, and
make them hold the ball a little longer."

After the adjustments, UCLA put a lot more pressure on Alexander
and the Beavers. OSU seemed out of sync and the Bruin defensive
line completely shut down the Beavers’ running game by allowing a
mind-boggling 35 rushing yards in the second half.

Junior strong safety Larry Atkins, who has played the last
couple of weeks with a deep-thigh bruise, could lay claim to
single-handedly sabotaging OSU’s offensive plans. In the first half
he recovered a fumble from a failed option attempt and he blocked a
54 yard field goal from Cortez. Then to start the second half,
Atkins sacked Alexander on OSU’s first offensive play. Atkins
proceeded to intercept his fifth pass of the season and get his
second sack of the game before it finished.

"(Atkins) plays in a position in our defense where he has a
chance to make some plays," Long said. "If he wasn’t the kind of
athlete or football player he is, he wouldn’t make near as many
plays as he does."

UCLA’s play on special teams, though, was nowhere near as
attractive as on defense. With senior flanker Jim McElroy still
recovering from a concussion, Toledo played it safe and made
freshman tailback Jermaine Lewis and sophomore tailback Mark
Reynosa the punt returners.

Lewis had a nice touchdown run when he bounced to the right on a
counter late in the first half (he replaced starting tailback Skip
Hicks, whose bruised knee limited his playing ability), but he
fumbled one punt return. Reynosa returned one put for 17 yards and
helped set-up Lewis run with great field position, but he too
fumbled away a punt return. By the end Toledo inserted McElroy in
order to make sure the Bruins retained possession of the ball.

On the offensive side of things, Lewis and sophomore tailback
Keith Brown combined for 20 carries and 77 yards, but the Bruins
did most of their damage in the air. UCLA made up for Hicks’
absence by coming out passing in the second half.

Bruin quarterback Cade McNown, who struggled finding a rhythm
early in the first half (throwing for only four yards), finished
with two touchdown passes and 210 yards.

With the score 17-3, UCLA went on a four-play drive that seemed
to put the game out of reach. With a 36-yard screen to Lewis,
McNown set a new school record for total offense, breaking Tom
Ramsey’s record of 6,255 yards.

Two plays later McNown connected with McElroy on a 310-yard
strike that made the score 24-3 with 10:23 left in the game. McNown
now has 6,320 total yards, but he was more concerned with his
"ugly" execution than his new record.

"It was kind of a rough game," McNown said. "I think that was
one of my worst games. I didn’t feel in sync. We were very streaky
… I don’t think we executed the way we wanted to, but we’ll take
the win. We still put up some points. But there is plenty of work
to be done."

Both McNown and Toledo credit the Beavers’ hard-playing defense
with disrupting the offense. They said OSU came out with a lot of
heart and emotion. But OSU first-year head coach Mike Riley knew
from game film that it would be extremely hard to stop UCLA’s
offense for 60 minutes.

"We couldn’t let them pound us and the same time we had to stop
the play action pass," Riley said. "Until we gave them short
fields, I thought we did an outstanding job … UCLA is one of the
most balanced football teams that I have ever seen."

JUSTIN WARREN/Daily Bruin

Tailback Keith Brown hurdles the line to score one of four Bruin
touchdowns in the brutal defeat of the OSU Beavers Saturday at the
Rose Bowl.