SAN DIEGO — Ever look up at a fast food menu and have no idea what to order? My buddy Jeff once had this problem at Taco Bell, so he decided to drop nine bucks (that’s right - NINE) and gorge himself with a little of everything.
If that sounds at all disgusting, just be glad you didn’t have to ride three more hours on I-5 with him.
Either way, it looks like the Bruins did the same thing Saturday.
Interception. Fumble recovery. Blocked punt. Quick-strike touchdown pass. Safety. Thrilling punt return. Sustained drive. Hard-earned rushing TD.
Heck, “not extremely mobile” Cory Paus even ran for five yards on a play. When that happens, it’s time to unbutton your jeans, recline the La-Z-Boy and realize that the Bruins have stuffed you rotten with a veritable pigskin smorgasbord.
OK, enough with this crude, overwrought food/football analogy.
The most important thing coming from UCLA’s 43-7 defiling of San Diego State (0-5) – more important than the cornucopia (sorry, can’t help it) of ways the Bruins found to score – was that this team was able to come back from a disheartening loss last week and cash in with a truly solid performance.
That’s something our beloved Bruins were painfully unable to do last year, when a devastating loss to Stanford was the first blow in a series of four straight losses that dropped UCLA from 6-0 to 6-4.
“We kind of wanted to try to do what Colorado did to us last week,” Paus said. “They lost a big one to USC, then came out and played awfully, awfully well against us. We just wanted to learn from them and just play better. We’re capable of it.”
Paus was poised throughout, even as he threw two balls awry and was sacked on the first series. He finished a workmanlike 12 for 21 with 216 yards and a pair of touchdowns, and his 64-yard touchdown toss to tight end Mike Seidman looked like Joe Montana and Jerry Rice playing a pickup game against five-year olds.
You know, men among boys type of stuff.
But the Bruins’ afternoon was about so much more than pitch and catch. The defense, which was ground into the Rose Bowl sod for 325 rushing yards against Colorado last week, held the No. 2 offense in the country to 271 total yards, or just over half the Aztecs’ season average.
San Diego State quarterback Adam Hall, who had his way with Colorado and Fresno State in losses earlier in the year, said after the game that UCLA handled the high-octane Aztec offense better than anyone had and never let him get comfortable.
The Bruins were almost entirely mistake-free (zero turnovers) while capitalizing on the abundant SDSU miscues (five turnovers for 14 points) and holding the ball for almost two-thirds of the game.
The special teams, long maligned for their impotent kick returns, racked up 114 return yards on six punts. Two other Aztec punts never made it past the line of scrimmage, one was blocked for a touchdown and the other sailing over the SDSU punter’s head and out of the back of the end zone for two points.
Six different Bruins ran the ball five or more times, and even a guy like redshirt sophomore Matt Kocher, who wasn’t listed on the depth chart, fell on a fourth-quarter Aztec fumble.
Yep, everyone got in on the act doing just about everything, like a great baseball rally where a team bats through the order getting hit after hit. Even the pencil-necked pitcher that everyone clowns on for striking out on the 50-mile per hour machine at the batting cages rips a double.
I can’t remember a UCLA game in the last four years where so many Bruins have done so many different things in such an all-encompassing blowout victory. I thought only teams like Florida and Miami did this kind of thing against someone like Southwest Oklahoma State Tech A&M.
Anyway, it’s exactly what this team needed to do with the Pac-10 season on the horizon, and whether or not it all goes by the wayside next Saturday, it’s a confident step in the right direction.
And for the fans…well, to use about my eighth simile of the column, it was like going to Taco Bell and saying, “I’ll take one of everything.” Best thing was, you didn’t even have to find a bathroom within the hour.
Sorry, it was just too easy.