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UCLA coach Karl Dorrell celebrates the Bruins’ emotionally charged overtime comeback over S

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Sophomore wide receiver Brandon Breazell makes the game-winning touchdown in overtime over Stanfo

PALO ALTO — After Bruin sophomore wide receiver Marcus Everett fumbled with 11:41 remaining in the fourth quarter, pockets of UCLA fans began migrating toward Stanford

Stadium’s exits.

Many more followed nearly three minutes later when Stanford’s Nick Frank rumbled in for a touchdown to give his team a seemingly insurmountable 21-point lead.

While a few fans filtered back into the rickety wooden stadium, those who didn’t happened to miss the most improbable and stunning of UCLA’s four come-from-behind victories this season, a 30-27 overtime win against Stanford in front of 45,280 fans Saturday night.

“This was No. 1, by far,” senior linebacker Justin London said. “This better be an instant classic. Check your local listings.”

“Most teams would have folded (being) down 21 points with only nine minutes left in the game,” Bruins coach Karl Dorrell said.

As the 2005 season has shown, however, UCLA (8-0, 5-0), only one of five teams left in Division I to still be undefeated, is hardly like most teams.

Saturday’s comeback against Stanford (4-3, 3-2 Pac-10) marks the fourth time in the month of October that No. 7 UCLA (The Associated Press Poll) has come back from a double-digit deficit in the fourth quarter, and the 21-point hole in the fourth quarter Saturday is the largest the Bruins have ever clawed out of to win.

But this comeback was quite different than its predecessors, calling for a different post-game celebration.

After the game and for the first time this season, Dorrell came out of the locker room to address reporters with his clothes soaked with not one but two huge buckets of Gatorade. It may have well have been sweat with what the Bruins put their coach through Saturday night.

“We can’t keep doing this,” redshirt senior linebacker Spencer Havner said.

Never were UCLA’s undefeated record and Rose Bowl aspirations in more jeopardy of vanishing this season then when the Bruins trailed the Cardinal 24-3 with more than half the fourth quarter having already ticked away.

And in an eerily similar reminder of the UCLA team of 2001, it appeared an undefeated and highly ranked Bruin team had come to Stanford Stadium and seen its dream season end at the willing hands of the Cardinal.

“I don’t know what it is about up here, but it’s just hard to win here,” said running back Maurice Drew.

But that fate was altered by the right arm of quarterback Drew Olson, the cushion of Stanford’s soft defense in the fourth quarter, and the awaiting arms of UCLA receiver Brandon Breazell. Down 24-3 with 8:26 remaining, Olson engineered two quick-striking drives of 65 and 72 yards, respectively, to bring UCLA to 24-17 with 4:43 left in regulation. Still down by seven and faced with a fourth-and-one with only 56 seconds left, Olson rolled out to his right and found receiver Joe Cowan, the third option on the play, to move to the Stanford 1-yard line to set up the game-tying score.

“Once we got into overtime, we were optimistic we could finish the game,” Dorrell said. “The momentum was swinging our way.”

After the Bruin defense held the Cardinal to a field goal in the overtime’s first possession, Breazell welcomed in a 23-yard pass from Olson in the left corner of the end zone for the game-winning score, delivering UCLA’s first victory at Stanford Stadium since 1997.

Like the Stanford marching band at halftime, UCLA players stormed aimlessly onto the field, not knowing whom to hug or what to do following Breazell’s touchdown, all the while dancing past several Cardinal defenders who lay motionless on the field after what had just transpired.

“There’s just no bottom, no hole that’s too deep for us, I guess,” Havner said.

“We couldn’t lose it here,” senior tight end Marcedes Lewis said. “Not to Stanford and not right now.”

Seven minutes of brilliant football in the fourth quarter ensured that wouldn’t happen. The 53 minutes of football that preceded it, however, made coming back to win exponentially more difficult.

Coming into Saturday’s game with the fifth-most prolific scoring offense in the country, the Bruin offense looked anemic for most of the game.

After the first quarter, Stanford quarterback Trent Edwards had as many completions (8) as UCLA had total yards of offense.

And heading into the fourth quarter, the Cardinal had done as good a job as any team before it in limiting the productivity of Olson, Drew and Lewis, holding the Bruin offense to a mere 147 yards through three quarters.

The Bruins were so thoroughly outplayed in the first three quarters that their performance had given life to what started as an apathetic crowd.

“(Stanford) is a heck of a football team, and they whipped us for three-and-half quarters,” offensive coordinator Tom Cable said. “The last 7:04, (we played) unbelievably. Before that, we looked like the Bad News Bears.”

“It’s awesome winning like this after playing so badly,” said Olson, who threw for 206 yards and two touchdowns in the fourth quarter and overtime.

For a team that treats fourth-quarter deficits like most other teams do double-digit leads, the Bruins, who have already shown their flair for the dramatic three times before this season, were still taken aback by how Saturday’s game unfolded.

Following the 10-point comeback against Washington, the feeling was one of relief.

Following the 12-point comeback against California, it was one of finally breaking through.

Following the 17-point comeback against Washington State, it was one of surging confidence.

But following the 21-point comeback against Stanford, it was one of disbelief and speechlessness.

“We were down 21 points with seven minutes left – that’s crazy, man,” Lewis said. “It’s crazy.”

“I really don’t know what to say,” Olson said.

Well, there is one thing.

“I hate that tree,” said Havner, referring to the Cardinal’s mascot.

After following the fans who stayed to the end out to the exit Saturday, he’ll never have to see that tree or play in Stanford Stadium ever again.