Bruins Rose Bowl eligible

You stick out your right hand to greet the only UCLA player to score a touchdown.

Craig Sheppard pulls back. His right hand is too sore. He offers the other one.

"I'm sorry, sir," he says.

You wonder if one of the Bruins' main offensive weapons in their 16-0 victory over Oregon will enjoy a postgame celebration.

Sheppard says he's going back to his apartment to watch television while taping ice bags to his sore groin.

"I guess I'm not that much of a partyer, sir," he says.

You ask one of the Bruins' most productive players if he is still paying his own tuition, room and board.

The non-scholarship kid flashes a full-ride smile.

"Yes, sir, but it's OK," he says.

It's OK?

"I've been blessed with a chance to play college football, sir," he says. "I don't need anything else."

And so, underneath the clutter of another confusing UCLA afternoon, a gem appeared.

Indeed, in what may be the final days of Karl Dorrell's reign, there exists clear evidence of something done right.

That something is Sheppard, a slightly built sophomore walk-on running back who epitomizes each of the three most famous words in UCLA football history.

He's gutty. He's little. And goodness, he's certainly a Bruin.

That's a cliche to most, but a resume for Sheppard, who began the season as a sixth-stringer and has wound up being an offensive lifeline, gaining nearly five yards per carry in the last three games, highlighted by his game-clinching, 20-yard scoring run in the fourth quarter Saturday.

"It was a really big hole, sir," he says. "Anybody could have run through it."

Sheppard is quick to call every adult "sir" or "ma'am."

He is also quick to tell you he is here only by the grace of his embattled head coach.

Last season, you see, he quit the team because he thought it wasn't worth it.

Who pays $20,000 a year for the right to get your head kicked in?

This is what the San Marcos kid thought when, during his second training camp in the spring of 2006, he tearfully told Dorrell that he was leaving.

"I just couldn't take it anymore," he recalls.

Four months later, he was back at Dorrell's desk, begging to return for this season.

"Being away from football was killing me," Sheppard says. "I missed the camaraderie, I missed the bond."

His pitch to Dorrell was simple. "I told him I would do anything he needed if he would let me back on the team," Sheppard recalls. "I would mop the floors if that's what it took."