RealFootball365: UCLA narrowly defeats Washington 21-17

By Kyle Dudley

The 20th ranked UCLA Bruins narrowly escaped an upset at the Rose Bowl on Saturday night. A second half surge allowed UCLA to nip the Washington Huskies 21-17 and keep their undefeated season alive. Ty Willingham’s Washington Huskies had upset on the brain from the start. After an 18 yard field goal by Evan Knudson with about 5 minutes remaining in the first half and after a 20 yard run by Kenny James resulted in the first touchdown of the game the Huskies were up 13-0 after 1 quarter of play. With another touchdown late in the 2nd quarter, Washington went into the half up 17-7. The real story of the first half, though, was the Huskies Defense. After amassing 322 yards and 5 touchdowns a week ago, UCLA junior running back, Maurice Drew, was held to just 33 yards and a touchdown against Washington. In the second half, the Huskies seemed to just be trying to hold on. The final nail in the coffin came with 3:39 to play when a 50-yard touchdown run by Louis Rankin was called back by a hold and Washington was forced to punt the ball back to UCLA. The result was an 8 play, 73 yard game-winning drive by the Bruins.

Coach Karl Dorrell’s UCLA Bruins escaped an upset with a strong second half performance out of their quarterback, Drew Olson. The senior signal caller tossed a couple of second-half touchdown passes and led a game winning drive late in the fourth quarter. The first was a 4-yarder to Mercedes Lewis in the third quarter. He tossed a 1-yard touchdown to Michael Pitre to open the 4th. In the final drive, Olson’s first pass attempt fell incomplete before he connected on 6 straight passes including a 39-yard pass to Marcus Everett. Olson finished the day with 287 yards passing with 2 touchdowns and two interceptions. Despite a tough game overall, Maurice Drew did seal the win with a diving 1 yard run to give the Bruins their first lead and the win.  UCLA goes to 4-0 on the year and will face #12 Cal next week. Washington falls to just 1-4 on the year and will travel to Oregon to try and get back on the winning track.