COLLEGE FOOTBALL : COMMENTARY : It Wasn’t a Victory, but a Humbling

And so it came to pass Saturday night at the Rose Bowl, that the Intimidators became the Intimidated.

The University of Arizona football team--more specifically, the defensive unit of the University of Arizona’s football team--was in Pasadena to play UCLA.

When word got out that they were on their way, mothers swept small children into their arms and off the streets. There was a run on home-security systems.

When last seen, these Tucson Toughies were holding a good Washington State team to two field goals last Saturday. They entered the game against the Bruins with a rushing-yards-yielded average measured in inches.

Last year, they sent UCLA home from Tucson with a 23-3 defeat and a bunch of blue-shirted Bruins dressed mostly in plaster. Last year, these guys beat up on Miami, which invented the art of college football brutality.

Teams playing Arizona go in praying for 6-3 victories. Touchdowns in bunches simply don’t happen against an Arizona defensive front that looks like four blimps with muscle tone. The Vegas over-under for Arizona games is usually around four.

So what happened in old Arroyo Seco Saturday night? UCLA won, 37-17. The Bruins led at the half, 20-0. That’s nearly 30% of the Wildcats’ 70-point yield in its first seven games.

This was a team with a 7-0 record, a No. 7 national ranking. It was a team with Rose Bowl hopes--a game that Arizona has never achieved--and a team that had gotten to this position based almost solely on a defense that simply bruised and battered opponents into submission and defeat.

So who ends up beating up on the bullies? A bunch of gutty little Bruins, that’s who.

The star of the Wildcat defensive line is senior Rob Waldrop of Phoenix. He weighs 275 pounds, bench presses 500 pounds and is so heavily sought-after by the pro football world that he had to change his phone number three times this summer to get some peace and quiet from agents.

Another fast-rising star is defensive end Tedy Bruschi. He is a sophomore from Roseville, Calif., weighs 250 pounds and usually lines up on the strong side, right next to Waldrop. Bruschi, a bit more flamboyant than Waldrop, tends to take his helmet off a lot, especially after sacks and big tackles.

Going into the game, Waldrop had 34 tackles, including 10 for losses and seven sacks for 39 yards. Bruschi had 32 tackles, including 19 1/2 for losses and 12 1/2 sacks for 99 yards.

But a UCLA offensive line of center Mike Flanagan, guards Derek Stevens and Matt Soenksen and tackles Vaughn Parker and Craig Novitsky handled the situation beautifully. When push came to shove in this game, the guys in the blue shirts were making the most forward progress.

In the end, in a game starting just before 8 p.m. so that the TV gods at ESPN could thrill all those dozens of viewers still craving college football at 2 a.m. in Hoboken, UCLA had reduced the unbeaten Wildcats to kicking a 49-yard field goal with 12 minutes to play and the Bruins leading, 30-7.

And then, the final indignity: Nkosi Littleton of UCLA making an interception and a 64-yard touchdown runback for 37-10 lead. In the end, it was hard to tell which defense was the one with the big reputation.

But there was no problem telling which team was pushing which around. On this night, The tough guys from the Arizona desert got sand kicked in their face.

And now the Bruins, certainly no 98-pound weaklings, can start thinking about things like top 10 rankings and Rose Bowls.