But when the Trojans took over, they had the ball all of 18 seconds. That's how long it took Southern Cal quarterback John Fox to connect with wide receiver R. Jay Soward on an 80-yard pass to tie the score. Soward, who racked up 260 yards on six catches a year ago against UCLA, finished with 181 yards on eight receptions. We felt like they wanted to pressure and we wanted to make sure they had to play with some respect for the deep ball. Respect is what the Trojans wanted.
Domination is what they got.
The Bruins held Fox to 178 yards passing and only one touchdown the remainder of the afternoon. The rapid scoring pace continued throughout the remainder of the first quarter, though, as the Bruins marched all the way down the field behind the running of tailback Skip Hicks to regain the lead. Many thought the Trojans would shut down the UCLA running attack. We thought it was kind of a misleading statistic and we wanted to run right at them. UCLA finished with 223 yards rushing.