The Healing Process

UCLA’s football team has not played since the loss at Miami on Dec. 5 cost it the chance to play for the national championship, so enough time has passed for emotions to have quieted. And for questions to have festered.

Could the issue over black wristbands have been blown any more out of proportion?

Is this a house divided, offense versus defense?

Will the showing against Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl determine whether Nick Aliotti remains as defensive coordinator?

Why would teammates question whether linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo really was sound enough to play against Miami? Ayanbadejo, who has played his heart out and the severity of whose sprained knee ligament was confirmed by the team physician?

And, most obviously:

Are the Bruins wounded too deeply to have the proper mind-set to prepare for the Rose Bowl--a consolation-prize game for them--and ultimately play well Jan. 1 in Pasadena?

The Bruins return to practice in earnest this week. Since that Miami game, there have been only sporadic workouts.

So when the defense gathered Monday for a film session, the bad memories came flooding back when Coach Bob Toledo showed 10 plays as examples of players in position to make tackles who didn’t. He probably decided to show only 10 because of time constraints.

But Toledo, hoping the films will teach and motivate, also hopes that will be the last of looking back to Miami on Dec. 5 and the start of the looking ahead to Wisconsin on Jan. 1.

He’s not the only one.

“Yeah, people were upset,” said guard Andy Meyers, the player who voiced his disappointment the loudest. “But nothing to drive a rift or anything through our team. No way. Nothing’s worth that. The season’s not over, and we still have a chance to have a record-breaking season for UCLA [by becoming the first team in school history to win 11 games].

“It takes time to heal. You can’t keep looking back at something. We’re looking forward now. No more talking about it. There’s no use in talking about it. People can start rumors, people can do whatever they want. Those are just rumors. Our team, we take care of each other, just like all year, when everybody said, ‘You should be [ranked] 20th. You should be 25th. You’re going to lose to Oregon. You’re going to lose to Arizona. You’re going to lose to Washington.’ We were going to lose about six times and we didn’t.

“The time we were supposed to win, we lost. But we got through that together as a team, we’ll get through this together as a team. We’ll come out and we’ll be ready to roll.”

So goes the healing process.

The Coach

Toledo has had some real healing to do--thanks to a car accident during a recruiting trip in Georgia with offensive line coach Mark Weber days after the Miami game. Both men were shaken and bruised.

Toledo is OK now and hopes the team has had a similar recovery from its painful experience.

“I think it’s going to be fine,” he said. “They’re looking forward to playing this game. They have a chance to win 11 games. It hasn’t ever been done around here. That last game is so important for you to win because it gives a good feeling to finish your career. It gives you a good feeling for the young guys going into the off-season program.

“I think the attitude is good right now and I think it’ll be fine for the game. A great example is this recruiting weekend. We had guys like Andy Meyers. Here’s a senior. Most seniors at schools, they’re not going to help you recruit. They’re outta there. He helped host a kid this weekend. All the players did a great job, they’re selling the program, they believe in what we’re doing.”

The Assistant

Defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti has been under the public microscope ever since Toledo said late in the regular season that blame for problems with the defense belonged largely with the coaches and not the players. Toledo meant some of the position coaches as well as Aliotti but the coordinator was the lightning rod. Positive showings in the next weeks boosted Aliotti’s standing, but the 49 points and the 689 yards allowed against Miami amounted to a severe blow.

Reviewing the game tape, Toledo saw that the problems in the Orange Bowl stemmed from players’ inability to tackle and execute plays, not from game plans or schemes.

It was a voicing of support for Aliotti. But it is not to be confused with a vote of confidence or assurance that Aliotti will be retained for next season. The same goes for some of the position coaches.

But Aliotti is the one on the firing line.

“I’m not doing as good as I’d like to be doing and I need to do better,” he said, again facing the criticism head on. “Nobody wants to hear or read about that probably. But I’m embarrassed. The best way for us to get it back is to line up and play well against Wisconsin.

“I’m still upset and down about how we played. . . . I could give you the party line, but I’m still struggling with that.

“Sleepless nights. Bad feeling in my stomach. Just embarrassed about the whole thing.

“When I’m around [the players] I do a good job of faking it and trying to build them up and get them going. Yeah, I need to let it go at some point. That was a pretty important game, not only in UCLA history, but, selfishly, in my own career, my own aspirations. That product that we put on the field is a direct reflection of me, and that hurts. And I can’t ever get that back.”

But the entire unit--coaches and players--can look ahead, to Jan. 1.

“That film was pretty sobering,” Aliotti said. “I thought we practiced well, but in that meeting, boy, it was quiet. Guys were not feeling good about themselves. But we’re going to move on from here.”

An Offensive Player

Center Shawn Stuart, like many others, has tried to end speculation that the offense has been frustrated by the defense for much of the season.

“No, because the defense has made some plays,” Stuart said. “They had a bad game. Everybody knows they had a bad game. But we’ve had bad games as an offensive unit.

“I think that if there’s anything we’ve been trying to do, it’s trying to help each other get better. If guys feel that or are frustrated about that, I think we’ve taken it out on each other in good ways, say, ‘We’re going to go [starters against starters] and we’re going to get each other better.’ ”

And the postgame comments at Miami about the poor play of the defense, particularly from Meyers?

“It’s frustration,” Stuart said. “You have a 20-game winning streak and you lose one, you lose a real tough heartbreaker in Miami, and the first common human characteristic is to blame. You’re going to want to blame and you’re going to want to get your thoughts out and blame it on other people.

“The truth is, people talked about the defense, but the offense fumbled two balls. If we didn’t fumble two balls, people would have been talking about how bad Miami’s defense was. It’s just a matter of circumstances.

“Obviously, we knew we needed to fix things. And . . . that whole armband thing [which involved a team vote against making a statement in support of affirmative action]. I think that people made a bigger deal of it than it was. I think we’ve moved on from that, but I think guys were shocked how big of deal it was made out to be, compared to what it really was. It was ridiculous.”

A Defensive Player

Cornerback Jason Bell became a symbol of the disappointment in Miami, staying on one knee on the sideline as most teammates left the field and Hurricane fans charged onto it.

That will probably be remembered for some time, but Bell hopes it can also be put in the past.

“For a day or two, I think probably a day, it was harsh,” Bell said. “It hurt.

“The defense knew that we did things that didn’t help win the game. We knew that and our teammates knew that. As a team, we felt that, together, we should address these issues to each other and not to anyone else. If the offense says something about us, they should say it to us behind closed doors in our house--our locker room. . . .

“I didn’t see them, but there might have been some comments in the newspaper that people said out of frustration. And we understand that on the defensive side of the ball, that people might have said things out of frustration right after the game. We kind of shook that off and said, ‘We’re still a family, we’re still a team and let’s forget about it.’ ”

Rose Bowl

UCLA (10-1) vs. Wisconsin (10-1)

1:30 p.m., Channel 7

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

UCLA Log

UCLA (10-1)

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49 Texas 31 42 Houston 24 49 Washington St. 17 52 Arizona 28 41 Oregon (OT) 38 28 California 16 28 Stanford 24 41 Oregon St. 34 36 Washington 24 34 USC 17 45 Miami 49

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