8-0 Bruins Put Wow in Race for National Title

By Chris Dufresne

Oct. 30, 2005 12 AM PT

PALO ALTO — It is difficult to dream up how one team could trail another by three touchdowns with 8:26 left and come back to win.

But it happened.

It is hard to fathom that a team that needed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to beat an opponent that last month lost to UC Davis could now, officially, be in the national title race.

But it is.

UCLA is 8-0 after Saturday’s 30-27 overtime win against Stanford, and no one was really sure what to do afterward except, in one deep breath, take in the sheer insanity of it.

The two words that kept coming to mind were “wow” and “how?”

The “wow” was UCLA’s being down 24-3, being played off their feet for 52 minutes, being so far down at the Farm that the Bruins were hip deep in pig slop, yet somehow dancing off the field in the end after quarterback Drew Olson connected with Brandon Breazell on a 23-yard scoring pass in overtime.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Olson said as Bruin players did snow angels in the Stanford Stadium grass and grabbed each other by the cheeks.

The “how?” is how UCLA got to this point in the season as one of five undefeated teams left in the nation -- and the thought being, does the nation realize this?

“There is something special about this team,” third-year Coach Karl Dorrell said as he walked across the field toward the winning locker room.

What was his first clue?

The fourth-quarter drive to beat lowly Washington?

The win over California after the Bears had started to pack equipment bags one week and then, the next, the miracle against Washington State?

“Are we the most talented team?” Dorrell said. “Probably not. But we do opportune things at opportune times.”

For 3 1/2 quarters Saturday, you were wondering how UC Davis might have stacked up against UC Los Angeles.

When it was 24-3, and the game was over (no, it really was), you were thinking silly things such as how far the 7-1 Bruins might fall in a Walt Harris poll.

Let’s just say if Saturday had been the British Open, the engraver would have been chiseling the “r” in Stanford on the Claret Jug.

Then, as they say, stuff happened.

UCLA cut the lead to 24-10 on a Maurice Drew run, and then Stanford Coach Walt Harris made a tactical mistake on Stanford’s next possession when he ordered three straight runs against the nation’s 98th-ranked defense and then punted.

Harris might as well have screamed into a megaphone, “You’re still in the game, Bruins!”

UCLA took the ball back with 5:17 left and ultimately had the game knotted, 24-24, with 46 seconds of regulation to spare.

UCLA, with more momentum than a falling Palo Alto (tall tree), knew the game was over when it went to overtime, players actually charging the field to celebrate a game that had ended in a tie.

“We had so much going our way at that point,” Olson said.

The Stanford sideline, in contrast, looked like 50 people waiting for a bus.

Uh-oh, game over.

The “what’s next” for these Bruins now plays like a daytime serial.

Are the Bruins really a team that can be mentioned as a national title contender?

“I think so,” Olson said.

Can UCLA really keep this up, through Arizona next week, then Arizona State and then, gulp, USC on Dec. 3?

“We’re better than anyone thinks we are,” Bruin tackle Brian Abraham said of the team’s poor play for three quarters. “But we won.”

The question is how many television sets in the East were already turned off at that point.

The Bruins have no idea how much this team is channeling the 1998 Cade McNown-led team that needed overtime to beat Oregon, a heave to beat Oregon State, and one tackle against Miami to play for the national title that year in the Fiesta Bowl.

Abraham said he had only vague recollections of McNown and those Bruins.

“I was just a little kid,” he said.

Yet the drumbeat is pounding toward a Bruin back end in which UCLA keeps pulling out games like Saturday’s as pollsters and computer geeks try to figure it out.

UCLA jumped from No. 9 to No. 6 in last week’s bowl championship series standings and will move up this week because No. 4 Georgia lost to Florida.

The Bruins need to get to No. 2 to earn a place in their home stadium, the Rose Bowl, for the Jan. 4 national championship.

Stanford, in fact, could help if it got a 24-3 lead next week against USC and didn’t blow it.

“Despite what the BCS says, we just need to be 1-0 next week,” Drew said. “I care about Arizona this week.”

So, did we really see what we saw Saturday?

Did UCLA really do what it did?

Is it time to take this team more seriously than it took three-plus quarters against Stanford?

UCLA ... national champions?

“We really don’t want to start bringing that up,” senior safety Jarrad Page warned. “National title, all those things, that’s how you slip up. Of course, that’s what our goal is. Every week is a step in that direction.

“The confidence building is the important thing, not the rankings.”

Whatever side of Saturday’s Farm fence you sat on, no one could argue with the winning quarterback’s assessment after his game-winning throw.

“Ridiculous,” Olson said.

And, to think, this might not even be the end of it.