Streak Grows, Roses Wilt

With a spectacular 80-yard touchdown on USC’s first play Saturday, the fleet feet of receiver R. Jay Soward announced that UCLA’s seventh victory in a row over USC wasn’t going to come easily.

But UCLA quarterback Cade McNown, the Houdini of third down, made sure that it came eventually just the same.

UCLA’s Rose Bowl hopes slipped away in Seattle on Saturday afternoon as Washington State beat Washington to earn the trip to Pasadena, but the seventh-ranked Bruins took care of business in town with a 31-24 victory in front of 91,350 at the Coliseum.

The UCLA band came out of the tunnel chanting “Six more years” before the game, and the Bruins walked up the tunnel afterward with their seventh in a row.

“What we had on our minds was this game,” said McNown, who passed for 213 yards and three touchdowns and scrambled for 48 yards. “We couldn’t control anything else.

“It’s extremely special to beat your cross-town rival seven in a row, especially since we’d been talking it up from the beginning of the year. Our posters were all about USC. To walk the walk and get it done was really fun for us.”

The Bruins, 9-2 and probably headed to the Cotton Bowl, didn’t seal the victory until Wasswa Serwanga intercepted USC quarterback John Fox’s fourth-down, last-gasp pass at the UCLA 23-yard line with 1:15 left--four plays after a successful on-side kick following Adam Abrams’ 36-yard field goal.

Abrams’ kick cut the lead to seven with 3:10 to play, but there was to be no repeat of last year’s double-overtime thriller.

“It was a great football game from start to finish,” said USC Coach John Robinson, whose future remains in limbo, with Athletic Director Mike Garrett saying only, “We won’t make a decision until after our season,” and Robinson refusing to discuss it.

“I won’t comment on any of that. That takes away from a great game and a great rivalry,” Robinson said.

USC (6-5) has been told to pack its bags for the Dec. 25 Aloha Bowl as long as Arizona State beats Arizona next week and is selected for the alliance’s Fiesta Bowl. But if Arizona State isn’t taken out of the Pacific 10’s bowl commitments, USC’s destination is uncertain, and it’s not out of the question the Trojans would turn down a bid from a lesser bowl.

Plenty of folks had Saturday’s game pegged for a blowout, with UCLA’s offense averaging almost 42 points a game and USC’s prone to fits and starts.

But the last 10 games between these teams have been decided by an average of less than five points, and this was another addition to a long list of close ones.

The score was tied at halftime, 21-21, and USC could quit thinking about staying close and start thinking upset.

Then McNown worked his magic in the third quarter on third-and-17 from his own 18-yard line. Almost sacked, he scrambled, kept his head up and found Danny Farmer for a 36-yard gain. Tight end Mike Grieb--one of those unlikely heroes--scored the go-ahead touchdown on a 38-yard pass play, eluding Rashard Cook, David Gibson and Antuan Simmons on his ramble to the end zone, his second touchdown of the game.

USC’s offense--prone to second-half slumps all season--was in another, and when the Trojans stalled at their own 42, USC sent in a fake punt.

Punter Jim Wren’s pass hit the hands of tight end Marvin Powell III--who has only one catch this season--but Powell couldn’t hold on.

UCLA turned outstanding field position into a 32-yard field goal by Chris Sailer and a 31-21 lead that USC could never overcome, thanks in part to Javelin Guidry’s interception at the goal line with 7 1/2 minutes left.

The turning point?

“I thought it was not getting the fake punt,” Robinson said. “It was open.”

Was Toledo, um, surprised by the call?

“Yeah, particularly with that field position,” Toledo granted with a little laugh. “I was kind of surprised, but that’s the great thing about trick plays, they’re supposed to surprise you.”

It was a game with plenty of surprises--starting with the final score.

UCLA scored on its first possession, finishing with Grieb’s nine-yard touchdown, the first of his two touchdown receptions, after a long drive keyed by McNown’s 29-yard scramble on third-and-nine.

Robinson couldn’t quite handle McNown’s name--he’d been calling him “the quarterback” all week and called him “McGowan” a couple of times Saturday--but then again, USC’s defense couldn’t handle him either.

“He’s a great football player,” Toledo said. “I expect next year for him to be one of the guys who can win the Heisman--and I say that so Cade won’t come out as a junior.”

USC’s first possession started on the 20-yard line.

Eighteen seconds later, it ended in the end zone after Fox hit Soward with a bomb after Soward beat cornerback Jason Bell, and Soward sprinted the final 30 yards into the end zone.

“I knew that was coming since Wednesday,” said Soward, who finished with 181 yards in eight catches, a year after his 260-yard day against the Bruins. “I went and told the coaches I wanted the first play of the game to be a go-route. I’ve been waiting all year to score on the first play of the game. I thought all week about diving into the end zone.”

For a while, it looked as if neither offense would be stopped very often.

UCLA scored on its first two possessions, the second a 16-yard run by Skip Hicks on a drive that McNown sustained with a 19-yard scramble. Hicks finished with 117 yards in 25 carries.

USC stalled on its next possession, but UCLA’s Eric Scott fumbled the punt and the Trojans’ Anthony Volsan pounced on the ball, giving USC a first down on the UCLA 24.

Three plays later, Mike Bastianelli scored on a 17-yard pass from Fox to tie the score, 14-14.

The speed of Chad Morton, USC’s safety-turned-tailback, gave USC a 21-14 lead with a 49-yard touchdown run.

But UCLA answered with a nine-yard touchdown reception by Jim McElroy with 9:34 to play in the first half, sending the teams in tied, 21-21.

Whenever the Bruins needed to come through, they did.

“Somehow those guys just get first downs. . . . Cade McNown, he is awesome,” Soward said.

But because of Washington State’s victory in Seattle, the Bruins own only a share of the Pac-10 title despite winning their last nine games of the season.

Their 37-34 loss to Washington State in the first game of the season in August decided their fate in November.

“We had our chance back in August to get it done there and we didn’t do it,” Toledo said.