UCLA Stops Cal, 38-21, Aims for Top

UCLA, which has been ranked No. 2 since it beat Nebraska in the second week of the season, staked its claim to No. 1 Saturday with another workmanlike dissection of an outclassed opponent, a 38-21 victory over California before a crowd of 58,000 at Memorial Stadium.

Since top-ranked Miami, the defending national champion, lost at Notre Dame, 31-30, the Bruins await what they believe will be their rightful ascension to the top of the polls this week.

What about Notre Dame?

“We deserve to be No. 1,” UCLA cornerback Darryl Henley said.

UCLA’s always-wary coach, Terry Donahue, wasn’t about to enter into such a debate, no doubt thinking in part about the Bruins’ most formidable future opponent, USC, which is also unbeaten.

“At this stage, it’s not that critical,” Donahue said of his team’s ranking. “The dust will settle at the end of the season.”

In 13 seasons under Donahue, UCLA has never reached No. 1. In fact, the Bruins, who improved to 6-0 overall and 3-0 in the Pacific 10 with their 17th consecutive victory over the slumbering Bears, have not been ranked No. 1 since 1967, when they were 7-0-1 before losing to USC, 21-20, in a game that decided the national championship.

“We’ll be excited about it,” Donahue said, “but I’m not going to worry about it, and I don’t think our team will worry about it.”

On a related point, however, Donahue said there should be no argument.

“I thought Troy Aikman was certainly the No. 1 quarterback in America today,” he said. “Whether or not we’re the No. 1 team--I don’t know about that. But I did feel Aikman was the No. 1 quarterback.”

Aikman thought so, too.

“Not to be boastful,” said Aikman, “but when I’m on the field, I do feel like I’m the best quarterback around.”

Aikman threw for a season-high 322 yards and 2 long touchdowns, completing 21 of 32 passes, and also ran for his first touchdown of the season.

UCLA, which had seemed reluctant to stretch its offense in recent weeks, opened it up, and Aikman burned Cal on several long passes.

Most notable among them were a 52-yard first-quarter touchdown pass to Paul Richardson and a 40-yard second-quarter touchdown pass to Reggie Moore.

“It was a shame that happened--those two long touchdowns,” said Cal Coach Bruce Snyder. “It was just too easy.”

On both plays, Snyder said, miscommunication in the Bear secondary left the Bruin receivers all alone behind the coverage.

“We didn’t call any routes that we haven’t called in any other week,” Aikman said. “It’s just that Cal was giving them to us. I think they’ve been reading the papers, too, and seeing that (reporters have said) that we never throw the ball deep.

“Cal busted coverages several times, and we were able to exploit that.”

Aikman was awarded a game ball in the locker room. Usually, the coaching staff awards them on Monday after reviewing the films.

Donahue saw no reason to wait.

“There wasn’t going to be any vote,” he said. “It was obvious to me that he deserved it. We’ve not had a better performance by a quarterback. It was nothing short of fantastic.”

Only a moment earlier, Donahue had said it was nothing short of spectacular.

You get the point.

But the victory, UCLA’s 10th in a row at Berkeley since it last lost in 1968, was not without its anxious moments.

Cal quarterback Troy Taylor, who completed 21 of 34 passes for 248 yards and 1 touchdown, had a fourth-quarter pass intercepted in the end zone and later drove the Bears to a touchdown and 2-point conversion that cut the Bruin lead to 38-21 with 5:07 left.

The Bears then recovered an onside kick, and Taylor drove them down the field again. This time, however, Cal was stopped short.

On consecutive running plays from the 1-yard line, Todd Powers was stopped for no gain on third down by UCLA linebacker Stacy Argo and safety Matt Darby, and Tyrone Bland was stopped for no gain on fourth down by nose guard Jim Wahler, who returned to the lineup after serving a 1-game suspension.

At that point, though, the outcome had long been decided.

UCLA opened a 17-3 lead on its first three possessions, on a 35-yard field goal from Alfredo Velasco after a holding penalty stalled its first drive, followed by the scoring bombs from Aikman.

Richardson was about 10 yards behind Doug Parrish when he caught his touchdown pass. Moore, who caught 6 passes for 122 yards, had a similar cushion between himself and defenders Travis Oliver and John Hardy, who had no chance to catch him.

“They were trying to sit down on our intermediate routes,” UCLA’s offensive coordinator, Steve Axman, said of the Bear defenders in general. “So we realized we could just blow by them.”

Taylor brought the Bears within 17-10, finding tight end Darryl Ingram for a 3-yard touchdown pass. Taylor, who faced pressure from the Bruin defense throughout the game, made a hurried throw to beat a blitzing Darby and then watched as Ingram made a diving catch in the end zone.

Aikman, rushing for his first touchdown since the Bruins’ 10th game last season, scored on a 1-yard dive with 16 seconds left in the half, ending a 60-yard drive in which Aikman reintroduced tailback Brian Brown to the UCLA offense.

Brown, who missed UCLA’s first 5 games with a hamstring injury, caught 3 passes for 24 yards as UCLA moved from Cal’s 44 to the 20.

At that point, wide receiver Mike Farr ran head-on into safety Jeff Ebert but miraculously hung on to a 19-yard pass from Aikman.

Aikman’s touchdown run, only his third in 18 games as the Bruin quarterback, gave UCLA a 24-10 lead at halftime.

Aikman, who faced a strong rush last week in a 38-21 win over Oregon State in which he was sacked 3 times, was protected more vigilantly against Cal, which wasn’t able to get to him as he scrambled for 30 rushing yards.

“We went to sleep last week, and I think the kids really took that to heart,” Axman said. “They weren’t real proud of that fact that they didn’t do a very good job of keeping up their intensity.”

Speaking of intensity, the UCLA defense continually harassed Taylor, who was sacked 7 times and wound up with minus-25 net rushing yards because of some fancy scrambling.

Said Snyder, whose Bears fell to 3-3 and 0-3 in the Pac-10: “Most of the time it was, ‘Uh, oh, here they come. I’d better get my butt out of here.’ ”

UCLA, which piled up 485 total yards, continued to roll in the third quarter, putting together two long touchdown drives to open a 38-13 lead.

A 7-yard run by tailback Eric Ball, who rushed for 85 yards in 24 carries, ended a 90-yard, 13-play drive that ate up 4 minutes 54 seconds and was kept alive with an 11-yard scramble by Aikman on 3rd and 10 from the Cal 26.

After Robbie Keen kicked his second field goal for Cal, Aikman drove the Bruins 80 yards in 10 plays, eating up 5:04. Brown, who carried 5 times for 31 yards and caught 4 passes for 30 yards, scored on an 11-yard run.

UCLA was breezing.

In fact, the loudest cheer of the quarter from the UCLA fans in the east end zone was reserved for Notre Dame, which wrapped up its win over Miami not long after UCLA had gone ahead, 31-10, on Ball’s touchdown run.

To Donahue and his players, though, it didn’t seem to matter much at this point whether they’re No. 1 or No. 2.

“It would be nice to be No. 1,” Henley said, “but I don’t think it will affect us. We still have to win every game to go to the Rose Bowl.”

And Donahue said: “Everybody’s shooting pretty hard at us as No. 2. I don’t think it would make much difference if we were No. 1.”

He may get a chance to find out.