`D' DESERVES A STANDING `O'.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

PASADENA - UCLA fans got their first in-person look at this season's football team Saturday and probably didn't recognize it.

UCLA's football team heard its fans roar for the first time this season and probably didn't recognize them.

When was the last time the Bruins won a game because of the defense - let alone two or three games?

When was the last time Bruins fans yelled for the defense as the players ran to the locker-room tunnel?

If you can answer those questions, take it as another sign you're getting old.

``I've never heard that before,'' senior linebacker Robert Thomas said, thinking of the way the Rose Bowl crowd chanted ``De-fense!'' after UCLA's 13-6 victory over Ohio State. ``I got chills all over my body.''

Not that Rose Bowl crowds haven't paid attention to the defense in the recent past. They just haven't had much reason to cheer for it.

``Maybe they've been crossing their fingers before a big play, hoping we'd get the job done,'' senior linebacker Ryan Nece said. ``But I haven't heard anything like this.''

Not here, certainly.

``I thought maybe I was in the wrong place,'' head coach Bob Toledo said with a laugh that was a long time coming.

Somewhere among the 73,000 attending UCLA's delayed home opener was a skeptic. There must have been.

It will take more than three games to erase the bad memories that begin with the 1998 Bruins' late-season, 49-45 loss to Miami and extend to the 2000 Bruins' school-record 368 points allowed.

But these three games have been pretty close to convincing.

The season-opening, 20-17 victory at 25th-ranked Alabama had made this the first UCLA team in Toledo's five-plus years to win a game in which it scored fewer than 23 points. The 41-17 victory at Kansas made this the first UCLA team since 1997 to give up so few points in back-to-back games.

It just got better. Saturday's victory over 21st-ranked Ohio State was, as far as the defense was concerned, a shutout, because the Buckeyes' touchdown was scored on a blocked punt.

We'll find out - possibly as soon as next Saturday's game at 22nd-ranked Oregon State - if this marks the end of the era in which ``Bruins defense'' was a contradiction in terms.

``This is a new era,'' promised junior cornerback Ricky Manning Jr. ``They (fans) will be yelling a whole lot more this year.''

Ohio State's six points were the fewest allowed by UCLA since its 66-3 victory at Texas in 1997. The Buckeyes' 166 yards in total offense were the fewest given up by the Bruins since their 44-0 victory over Northeast Louisiana in 1996.

More impressive than the overall effect was the fact the defense kept coming through in pivotal moments. It allowed Ohio State to convert only one first down in 16 attempts on third and fourth. It stopped Ohio State drives in Bruins territory six times.

It held Ohio State to an errant field-goal attempt after one of Bruins' tailback DeShaun Foster's four fumbles was lost at the UCLA 9 with the score 10-6 in the third quarter. Linebacker Marcus Reese stopped Ohio State's Jonathan Wells for 1 yard on first down, defensive end Kenyon Coleman pressured quarterback Steve Bellisari into a Marques Anderson sack on second, and Nece might have influenced split end Michael Jenkins' leaping drop in the end zone on third.

``The defense was able to do something that I haven't seen it do here - make big plays at big times,'' Nece said ``It was an amazing feeling.''

Four UCLA turnovers put the defense on the spot over and over.

``(The offense has) bailed us out a lot of times,'' said Thomas, whose team-high nine tackles included five for negative yardage. ``We had to pay them back. We've got team unity this year. We all believe in each other.''

The resurgence has something to do with defensive coordinator Phil Snow, who replaced Bob Field following last season and has preached sound tackling, close attention to assignments and all-out effort for ``six seconds'' - the time between snap and whistle on the typical play.

It has a lot to do, say the players themselves, with experience and the release of pent-up frustration.

``You know how it is when a normal guy just goes nuts? That's what's happened to our entire defense,'' said Manning, one of eight returning starters among the defensive 11. ``We've gone psycho. It's just gone to flip mode. It was, `We're not going to take it anymore.' It's all attitude. It's six seconds of straight focus - and hitting 'em in the mouth.''

Said Nece: ``When you have the media and your peers saying you're a bad defense, it builds up in you. It doesn't matter if you have this defensive coordinator or another defensive coordinator. It's the players.''

Said Anderson: ``We've got something to prove this year.''

Of course, the UCLA defense has had something to prove for a number of years. The difference now is, it's doing something.