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Defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker has been the spark for UCLA’s defensive turnaround thi

When he was in the running for UCLA’s newly open position of defensive coordinator, DeWayne Walker sought out the advice of a longtime friend and colleague. And then Walker promptly ignored him.

Karl Dorrell dismissed his defensive coordinator, Larry Kerr, after back-to-back seasons in which the Bruin defense was ranked at the bottom of the country in nearly every defensive statistical category.

Walker, the secondary coach of the Washington Redskins at the time, saw the UCLA job as a chance to come back home to Southern California and put his fingerprints on a college defense.

Walker called Trojan coach Pete Carroll, whom Walker worked under in New England and at USC, and asked Carroll what he thought. Carroll told him not to take the job, that it would take years to change the soft, passive image of the Bruin defense.

Of course, Walker took the job anyway and has been able to rebuild the Bruin defense with blitz-happy schemes and man-to-man coverage. It was a drastic shift in philosophy, but it has yielded huge results.

So perhaps it is fitting that all that stands between Carroll and his fourth straight shot at the national title is Walker’s defense.

When UCLA (6-5, 4-4 Pac-10) takes the field against No. 2 USC (10-1, 7-1) Saturday, they will be looking to end a seven-game losing streak in the rivalry. If the Bruins are to pull off an upset, Walker will have to find a way to shut down the Trojans’ glut of playmakers.

“For the first couple of plays, our guys are going to be pumped up,” Walker said. “But then you get that out of the way, and you’ve got to play a football game. So it’s my job to get these guys to just win a football game and not worry about all that outside stuff.”

This is the last hurdle in a season in which Walker asserted himself as one of the nations’ top defensive minds. It would be hard to imagine UCLA playing in a bowl without the revival of its defense. Pat Cowan has struggled in Ben Olson’s place, and the running game has been inconsistent.

The only stalwart has been Walker’s defense, which has turned defensive ends Bruce Davis and Justin Hickman into All-American candidates and developed freshmen Reggie Carter and Alterraun Verner into key contributors.

And the one guy who knows that more than anyone else is Carroll.

“There’s no question that DeWayne Walker has made a big difference,” Carroll said at a Tuesday press conference. “Their style is different, their attitude is different. I’m not surprised by DeWayne’s impact, just disappointed it happened so fast.”

Carroll said he suspects UCLA will be a bigger challenge for his team than Notre Dame, which lost 44-24 at the Coliseum last week. He gave one reason: Walker’s defense.

“A lot of guys for (the UCLA defense) have played better than they have in the past, and I think that’s a tribute to what DeWayne has accomplished,” Carroll said.

UCLA players have lauded Walker for his no-nonsense approach that lets them know exactly what he expects. Walker, in turn, has spoken openly about the need to keep players uneasy about their starting roles in order to motivate them.

Walker spoke generally about what schemes he has planned for Saturday’s game, but the one theme he kept coming back to was confidence. An often-used term and an undervalued commodity, attitude has defined Walker’s mantra. This is something the players have bought into as well.

“I know that we can go on the field and disrupt any offense in the country,” junior linebacker Christian Taylor said. “That’s a confidence we might not have always had in the past.”