UCLA braces for battle with hungry Wildcats
■The once-mighty Bruins
need to beat Arizona to
salvage their sub-par season
By Peter Hockaday
Oregon Daily Emerald
Every week, it seems, UCLA has
some sort of crucial conference game.
After losing to Oregon 39-10 in
Eugene to start the
Pacific-10 Confer
ence schedule, the
Bruins needed to
beat Arizona State.
They did.
Then, after a
triple-overtime
loss to California in the Bay Area,
the Bruins needed to beat Oregon
State to stay afloat in the Pac-10
standings.
They didn’t.
Now, UCLA (4-3, 1-3) takes on
No. 24 Arizona (5-2, 3-1) in what
could be the Bruins’ most important
game yet if they want to salvage a
spiraling season.
The Wildcats, on the other hand,
need a win to be mentioned with
Oregon, Oregon State and Washing
ton as contenders for the Rose Bowl.
“Both teams desperately need a
win, and both teams really want to
win,” Arizona coach Dick Tomey
said.
Saturday’s game, then, could
come down to pure desire.
“On any given Saturday anybody
can win,” UCLA head coach Bob
Toledo said. “It usually just comes
down to the team that plays just a
little bit better, ends up winning the
football game.”
Arizona’s defense wins football
games for the Wildcats. Arizona av
erages only 24.6 points per game on
offense — sixth in the Pac-10 — but
gives up 16.0 points on defense, good
enough for second in the conference.
The Wildcats’ defense is an
chored by a few key players. One is
comerback Michael Jolivette, who
got spectacularly nailed by Wesley
Mallard in last week’s Oregon-Ari
zona game. Jolivette is one of the
best comerbacks in the country, and
had eight of the Wildcats’ 12 inter
ceptions on the season.
The other key player is defensive
end Joe Tafoya, who has been one of
the hardest hitters on a hard-hitting
Arizona defense this year. Named
the defensive player of the week for
Sept. 5, Tafoya has nine tackles for a
loss, two forced fumbles and four
broken-up passes this season.
On UCLA’s side of the ball, not
much has been going the Bruins’
way recently. UCLA finally re
turned top running back DeShaun
Foster last week, but the junior tail
back rushed 18 times for only 56
yards, a 3.1 yards-per-carry average.
Both teams
desperately need a win,
and both teams really
want to win.
DickTomey
Arizona head coach
But the Bruins will need a lot
more than a breakout game from
Foster if they want to beat the Wild
cats and start thinking about a bowl
game.
There’s the road thing. UCLA
can’t seem to win on the road, and
should face a reasonably rough
crowd in Tucson. The Bruins carry
an eight-game road losing streak
into Saturday’s game.
But UCLA may never return to
top form this season. If it does, it
must start this weekend in Arizona.
This is, after all, another crucial
game for the always-exciting Bru
ins.
Erin Swanson-Davies Emerald
Arizona defenders Jarvie Worcester (47), Lance Briggs (27) and Jermaine Chatman (23) gang up to tackle Maurice Morris last week.
Pac-10 heats up as bowls loom
■Saturday’s matchups
should answer some big
questions about the
conference race
By Peter Hockaday
Oregon Daily Emerald
Pacific-10 Conference football
just gets more exciting every week.
This Saturday, all the questions
that seemed to have answered
themselves
could come
undone.
Is Arizona
for real? We’ll
find out when
they take on
UCLA in Tuc
son.
Is Joey Har
rington better on the road than he is
at home? He should thrill the crowd
at Arizona State.
Is Southern California really that
bad? We’ll know the answer when
they take on upstart California in
Los Angeles.
Can Washington play on the
road? We’ll find out in a hostile
Stanford Stadium environment.
And finally, is Oregon State going
to contend for the Rose Bowl?
They’ll have a road block when
Washington State comes to town.
Should we dissect the games?
No. 9 Washington at Stanford
Washington (6-1,3-1 Pac-10) sur
vived a scare when California came
to Seattle last weekend. Down 24
13 going into the fourth quarter, the
Huskies rallied to score 23 points
and crush the Golden Bears 36-24.
Now Washington will face Cal’s
Bay Area rival, Stanford (3-4, 2-2),
which had a little drama of its own
last Saturday against Southern Cali
fornia. Quarterback Chris Lewis, re
placing injured starter Randy
Fasani, threw a 20-yard bomb to
Jamien McCullum on the final play
of the game to give Stanford a 32-30
win.
This weekend, the pressure will
rest squarely on Washington’s
shoulders. The Huskies still have a
legitimate shot at the Rose Bowl, but
must win the rest of their games to
H They're a team that's
very capable of coming in
here and beating us.
Dennis Erickson
Oregon State head coach, on
the Cougars
get there.
Stanford is just looking for a bowl
game and has to win three of its last
four to achieve that feat. But after
Washington, the road gets slightly
easier for the Cardinal, who play
UCLA at the Rose Bowl, then Arizona
State at home and Cal in Berkeley.
Washington State at
No. 18 Oregon State
Oregon State (6-1, 3-1) is another
team that has the pressure mount
ing with each snap of the football.
The Beavers are one of the best one
loss teams in the conference and
must prove themselves once more
against Washington State (3-4,1-3).
“They're a team that's very capa
ble of coming in here and beating
us,” Oregon State head coach Den
nis Erickson said about his former
team, Washington State.
Erickson has reason to worry.
The Cougars have a deceptive
record and have taken Arizona and
Arizona State to overtime in their
last two games, but lost both. Wash
ington State’s emergence has come
on the back of Jason Gesser, one of
the league’s best passers.
But the Beavers have Ken Simon
ton, the nation’s fifth-best rusher, and
quarterback Jonathan Smith, last
week’s Pac-10 offensive player of the
week. Oregon State should continue
to pave its way to the roses.
California at
Southern California
The wheels have come off the
USC bus. Now the season is gone,
and coach Paul Hackett could be
also. The Trojans (3-4, 0-4) must
win their final four games to even
become bowl elgible since they
played an extra game early on.
California (2-5, 1-3), didn’t have
the expectations that USC did, but
had nearly the same results. The
Golden Bears’ 15 minutes of fame
for 2000 came when they beat
UCLA in triple overtime in Berke
ley, but they have dropped games to
Washington, Arizona State and
Washington State. Cal needs to win
out if they want to go to a bowl, but
with games against Oregon State
and Oregon, that seems highly un
likely.
Hackett may be the only person
in the world who cares about the
outcome of Saturday’s game be
tween the Trojans and the Golden
Bears.
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