Bruins Can’t Stop the Cardinal, 21-20

Anthony Cobbs got caught peeking, and Stanford gave him an eyeful.

Cade McNown just got caught by the clock.

As a result, UCLA got caught by the Cardinal with 58 seconds to play Saturday at the Rose Bowl when Chad Hutchinson found Brian Manning open in the end zone. Hutchinson’s 10-yard touchdown pass finished an 80-yard, 10-play drive and resulted in a 21-20 Stanford victory that spoiled the Bruin homecoming.

It also revealed just how young the UCLA offense really is.

“I had Manning head-up,” said Cobbs of the final touchdown play. “I had a little help on the inside, but I was supposed to shade him outside, playing man-to-man, and I glanced back at the quarterback and lost him.”

In the instant Cobbs looked at Hutchinson, Manning--recently demoted to second-string flanker despite being close to setting several school receiving records--cut to the left sideline and took a slight lead on him.

“I thought I overthrew him,” said Hutchinson, a redshirt freshman who completed 22 of 32 passes for 268 yards and two touchdowns.

Hutchinson withstood five sacks, four in the first half, and he completed seven passes for 66 yards on the winning drive.

“He did what a quarterback has to do: Produce a winner,” Coach Tyrone Willingham said. “Our offense coordinator [Dana Bible] worked on that play all week, and we executed it well.”

They shouldn’t have had the opportunity to execute it at all.

“Defensively, if we had made plays, we would have stopped them, but instead, they drove down the field and threw the touchdown pass,” Coach Bob Toledo said.

The plays included missed tackles on the final drive, several on Hutchinson, who suddenly found himself able to pass with impunity.

“We felt we would stop them,” linebacker Brian Willmer said. “We had the two drives before that. When they got in our territory, there was more of a sense of urgency, but I didn’t think there was panic.”

There was afterward, when UCLA got the ball on its 22-yard line after the kickoff. There were 51 seconds to play and the Bruins had three timeouts.

When the game ended, the ball was on their 24 and two timeouts had gone unused.

In that 51 seconds, there were two McNown scrambles, two incomplete passes, two penalties and finally an intercepted Hail Mary effort.

And there was also enough embarrassment to go around for everybody, particularly when seconds ticked away while McNown stood in shotgun formation, trying to call a play.

“That’s what I’m real disappointed in,” Toledo said. “Cade’s not a freshman anymore, and he’s got to understand a little better about that. . . . We were using way too much time off the clock.”

The scrambles didn’t help. McNown ran for six yards, then called time out with 40 seconds to play.

Then he ran for six more yards, to the 34. It took 21 seconds to get the next play off, and even that caused a problem. Center Shawn Stuart rocked forward on the ball, and UCLA was penalized for illegal procedure.

Still, 19 seconds remained, with field goal range about 40 yards away. But after the penalty was stepped off, the clock started and McNown took seven more seconds to get off another play, a pass that was dropped by Tod McBride at midfield.

With six seconds to play, UCLA was penalized for having 12 players on the field.

After two more plays--an incomplete pass and the interception--the game ended, with Stanford and UCLA both at 3-5 overall, 2-3 in the Pacific 10 Conference.

Things could have been different.

“There was enough time. We’ve moved the ball farther in less time,” McNown said. “And there were three timeouts.”

But he was mystified by what happened after the second scramble.

“I thought the clock stopped [with making a first down],” he said.

It did, then it started again without an attempt to throw the ball into the ground or call a timeout.

The Bruins had taken a 7-0 lead, then lost it when Mike Mitchell scored on a 10-yard run and Hutchinson found Troy Walters with a 50-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter.

UCLA had overcome a 14-7 halftime deficit with field goals of 27 and 47 yards from Bjorn Merten, sandwiched around a 37-yard touchdown pass from McNown to Keith Brown.

The Bruins had struggled, with McNown completing only 14 of 34 passes for 156 yards and three interceptions, and with Skip Hicks averaging only 3.6 yards in 26 carries.

And they had dropped passes that had hit their chests, their arms and finally Mike Grieb’s hands in the end zone.

But they still led a team that had faltered in the second half much of the season, that had scored only two points in seven third quarters (now only two points in eight quarters).

But one which scored the points it needed to in the fourth, and which then saw UCLA, well, lose its poise?

“Possibly,” Toledo said. “We showed some inexperience. I think it’s a real possibility. They haven’t been in that situation too many times. I’m hoping they learn from it.”