Bruins have gone this route before

UCLA is 2-0. It has beaten a Top 25 team in a close game. It has another Top 25 team next up on the schedule. It looks like the best team in the Pacific-10 Conference. Hands down. But it is still early in the 2000 season.

That's right, we're talking last year here. It sounds familiar, doesn't it? Well, it should. The Bruins are off and running again. They have started the 2001 season the exact same way they started 2000.

Now they just need to make sure it stays that way. Remember, the Bruins lost five of their last seven games in 2000 and finished an unsatisfying 6-6.

The problem - UCLA couldn't control the football.

This year, the problem seems to be fixed. All it took was getting DeShaun Foster the ball some more. The tailback is fourth in the nation in rushing (149.5 yards per game). Shoot, the team has the 16th-best rushing offense in the nation.

Yes, Bob Toledo is still the coach there. Yes, everybody knows he likes to air it out. Even he knows it.

"I'm not a conservative person," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I love to open it up."

Yeah? Well, he hasn't opened it up and therefore he has shut down other team's opportunities. Need facts? The Bruins are 10th in the league in passing offense this season and first in rushing offense.

Last year, the Bruins were last in rushing offense and second in passing offense. "That (last year's stats) tells you something about being physical, and that had to change," Toledo said.

What also had to change was the physical health of Foster. In his first two seasons, he was hampered with knee and ankle injuries. Last season, he missed two games with a broken hand.

So far this season, Foster's healthy. And he has accounted for a healthy percentage of UCLA's offense. In fact, he's had the ball 41 percent of the time on offense and accounted for 45 percent of the yards.

"I'm gonna ride that horse," Toledo said.

Yarber arrested

Oregon State assistant Eric Yarber, a former University Idaho standout, was arrested and charged with tampering with evidence in a Corvallis police department investigation Monday.

Yarber, OSU's wide receivers coach, allegedly threw a handgun his son, Robert, used to threaten five teenage girls into a river and then refused to show officers where he threw the gun.

"I didn't do that," Yarber told the Associated Press. "They can allege anything they want. I will fully cooperate with the investigation once my son has talked to a lawyer."

The incident was touched off after Robert Yarber and Matthew Benson, both 17, allegedly went to a house in Corvallis and accused the five girls there of throwing eggs at Benson's car.

"Mr. Yarber pointed a gun at two of the girls, cocked the gun, pointed it at one girl's head and pulled the trigger," Benton County sheriff's deputy Al Schermerhorn told the AP.

The gun was not loaded.

Robert Yarber was charged with burglary, unauthorized use of a weapon, pointing a firearm at another, menacing and carrying a concealed weapon. Benson was charged with burglary.

Schedule changes

The seven Pac-10 teams who canceled their games last weekend have successfully rescheduled them.

Cal and Rutgers are scheduled to play Nov. 23 in New Jersey. Washington State will play host to Montana State on Oct. 18. Arizona State and UCLA will play in Los Angeles on Dec. 1. Oregon State will play host to Northern Arizona on Nov. 17. Washington will at play Miami Nov. 24. And Stanford will play San Jose State Dec. 1.

The Cardinal may turn out to be the team most adversely affected by the schedule change. Stanford will have only played three games in the first six weeks of the season.

The last eight weeks, the Cardinal will have to play every Saturday.

Quote of the week

Not to pick on Tom Holmoe, but the Cal coach keeps opening himself up to it both by his team's play and his comments. Here's this week's quote, which came after another 25-plus-point loss. "Should we fold? No way," he said. "I am surprised, but I can't just sit here and be in a stupor. We have to change something."

Um, the something that needs changing is the coach.

Copyright 2001 Cowles Publishing Company
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