There’s an old adage in football that the best way to win is to run the ball and stop the other guy from doing so. Northwestern was reminded Friday that it applies to it, too, no matter how much the Wildcats like to throw the ball around.
They couldn’t do either at key times Friday, and so they blew a 22-point first quarter lead in a bizarre 50-38 loss to UCLA in the Sun Bowl.
It was no stranger than at the end, when UCLA’s Brendan Breazell returned two Northwestern onside kicks for touchdowns after the Wildcats twice had cut their deficit to five points.
“Never seen anything like it,” Northwestern coach Randy Walker said.
It was an appropriate ending for a weird game in which Northwestern’s defense supplied the offense, the offense went three quarters of playing time without a touchdown and the special teams imploded.
As a result, the Wildcats’ fifth bowl appearance in 11 years ended with a fifth loss, and their bowl drought still extends to the 1949 Rose Bowl.
“There’s no question they did a great job of reversing momentum,” Walker said after the Bruins staged the biggest comeback in their history.
After the defense staked the Wildcats (7-5) to a 22-0 lead, 17th-ranked UCLA (10-2) scored the next 36 points.
The Bruins rushed for 188 yards on their first 18 carries, gaining huge chunks of yardage up the middle. And they did it without leading rusher Maurice Drew, who missed most of the first half with a bruised shoulder.
He wasn’t missed. Chris Markey rushed for 150 yards and Kahlil Bell for 136 and two scores.
“Running the ball was a key part of what we wanted to do today,” said UCLA quarterback Drew Olson, who rallied to throw three touchdown passes after matching his season total of three interceptions in the game’s first 11 minutes.
Northwestern defensive end Kevin Mims avoided a blocker and intercepted a screen pass and returned it 30 yards for a touchdown to give Northwestern a 9-0 lead. The Wildcats made it 15-0 when Mark Philmore ran 19 yards on a reverse after safety Bryan Heinz intercepted a tipped ball. And it was 22-0 after tackle Barry Cofield hit Olson as he threw and Nick Roach returned the interception 35 yards.
“I thought if we would score two defensive touchdowns we would win,” Cofield said. “That was a shock.”
“I couldn’t ask for more from our defense,” Walker said. “They scored a couple more touchdowns, they forced them to kick and gave us the ball back. Fifty points looks bad and they got some yards, but we’ve been in that game all year and we were today.”
After the 22-0 start, the UCLA onslaught began and the Wildcats’ offense went six possessions without a score.
UCLA went into the game with the nation’s worst rushing defense, having allowed 238.6 yards per game. Northwestern rushed for only 168 yards, partly because senior quarterback Brett Basanez threw a career-high 70 passes.
“We didn’t rush the ball as well as we thought or hoped,” Walker admitted.
Basanez said his head was “kind of jumbled” by a hit late in the first half.
“We missed a lot of opportunities,” said Basanez, who threw two touchdown passes and was intercepted twice inside UCLA’s 12.
UCLA made changes in its defense to shut down the Wildcats’ rushing.
“Our guys up front didn’t handle their slants and angles a lot,” offensive tackle Zach Strief said. “They were moving on pretty much every single play . . . and the cutbacks weren’t there.
The Wildcats’ special teams were big contributors to the loss. Joel Howells had a field goal blocked and missed two extra points, one of which was blocked.
And in the final 2:29, the Wildcats botched the two onside kicks after cutting their deficit to five points with Basanez touchdown passes to Philmore and Shaun Herbert. And both times Breazell caught the ball cleanly on a bounce and returned it for a touchdown.
“We live by the sword and die by the sword,” Walker said. “We executed an onside kick against Iowa [to set up the winning touchdown], and without it we wouldn’t have been here.”
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tabannon@tribune.com
