On-again, off-again start for Bruins

For half of its first game, UCLA was half a football team.

The Bruins turned back Tennessee after an 11-play drive ended in a missed field goal . . .

And two plays later, the defense was back on the field.

The Volunteers were denied again . . .

And three plays later, the defense was back on the field.

So went the Bruins' yin-and-yang first half in a 27-24 overtime victory. The offense handed over the ball, with four passes intercepted. The defense held, yielding only one touchdown.

"Those interceptions were kind of killing," defensive end Korey Bosworth said. "After the second one and the third one, I was like, 'Come on, we can't be running on and off the field.'

"In the end, the offense turned it around and we got the win."

That had been the game plan, to keep the score manageable until the fourth quarter.

But how many times the defense can follow such a script is still to be seen.

The aroma of postgame fireworks wasn't the only thing lingering at the Rose Bowl that night. There was this question: Can the Bruins' defense hold up while the offense does a tightrope act?

One-act plays have been successful for UCLA in the past, to a point. A decade ago, the Bruins' offense was a three-ring circus, while the defense was the elephant in the room.

That show resulted in 10 consecutive victories to start the season . . . followed by consecutive losses in which UCLA scored 76 points but gave up 87.

This season, the Bruins appear to be the flip side of that high-scoring 1998 team.

"Our trump card is going to be our defense, there's no question about that," said Coach Rick Neuheisel, who on Saturday in Provo, Utah, will send UCLA against a Brigham Young passing game that ranks third in the nation. "[Defensive coordinator] DeWayne Walker has done an excellent job in building a culture here that expects great things. He expects to be the shutdown defense that can affect the game in a favorable way. We're going to need that."

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Danny Farmer was UCLA's leading receiver in 1998, when offense propelled the Bruins to that 10-0 mark and a No. 3 national ranking.

"We knew we could score any time," he recalled. "If we had the ball last, we'd win the game."

But with national title hopes on the line, they didn't. A 49-45 loss to Miami cost the Bruins a shot at the national title. Then came a 38-31 loss to Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.