One point.
No other margin of victory can cause such joy or heartache.
UCLA has experienced the negative side of a one-point outcome in each of its last two meetings with Oregon. The Ducks survived a last-second field goal attempt in each game, defeating the Bruins 31-30 last season and 21-20 in 2001.
While UCLA can certainly use these narrow losses to Oregon as motivation, it needs not look that far into the past for a driving force. The Bruins have fallen out of first place in the Pacific-10 Conference during the past two weeks with road losses to Stanford and No. 12 Washington State. With a conference record of 4-2, the Bruins desperately need a win to stay in the Pac-10 title hunt.
UCLA head coach Karl Dorrell said the Bruins need to overcome consecutive losses the way Oregon overcame its loss to Washington by defeating California.
“We need to get ourselves in position to be where Oregon is right now,” Dorrell said. “To do things positively (through) production and execution and taking care of the football. Those are the issues that have plagued us the last couple of weeks.”
In an attempt to gain offensive consistency, Dorrell made a change at quarterback. After naming sophomore Matt Moore the starter on Saturday, Dorrell announced Monday that sophomore Drew Olson would get the start against Oregon.
“Offensively we are still trying to generate the continuity on that side of the ball and that has been a struggle,” Dorrell said. “After all the evaluation that I did (Sunday) in watching our game, Matt has done some good things for us offensively, but he hasn’t been as consistent as we would hope that position to be.
“Drew has, when the times he has been the starter, done some good things for us, and we were winning quite a bit at that time too.”
Olson has passed for 1,456 yards and six touchdowns compared to Moore’s 555 yards and two scores.
Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti said the Ducks respect Olson’s skills and expect to see the Bruins throw the ball deep.
“He is a guy that we liked out of (Piedmont) high school,” Bellotti said. “We think he is a quality quarterback and a quality leader.”
UCLA also has a pair of explosive running backs in sophomore Tyler Ebell and freshman Maurice Drew. Both are strong runners who were highly touted during their prep careers. Drew was ranked as the sixth-best running back prospect in the nation by TheInsiders.com and received a lot of attention from Oregon coming out of De La Salle High School.

At 5-foot-8 and 200 pounds, Drew leads UCLA in rushing with 465 yards and five touchdowns on 95 carries. Ebell isn’t far behind with 428 yards and two scores on 104 carries. Ebell, who attended Ventura High School (Calif.), is also a compact runner at 5-foot-8 and 180 pounds.
“We have some very good, young backs,” Dorrell said. “We’re just trying to do what it takes to utilize both of our backs in the best way possible.”
Defensively, the Bruins are led by defensive end Dave Ball. The senior leads the Pac-10 with 17.5 tackles for loss. He also has 13.5 sacks this season and now owns the UCLA career record with 27.5.
If the Bruins are going to win Saturday, it will be their defense that needs to carry them. While an inconsistent offense ranks eighth in the Pac-10 in passing and last in rushing, the defense is allowing 316.8 yards per game, good for second in the conference.