AFTER HITTING PEAK, THEY SEE POINT OF NO RETURN.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

For the UCLA football team, the bane of an otherwise auspicious season was a hurricane and a guy named Dayne.

We predict you'll see rainfall during the Rose Bowl game before you see another national-championship season that hinges on a meteorologist's call. Watching the Bruins succumb to Wisconsin 38-31, one thing was as clear as the vista on another gorgeous New Year's Day:

They got jobbed. By the professionals tracking Hurricane Georges.

Because as soon as those good people made the determination that the storm that devastated Haiti and the Dominican Republic had the potential to pack a wallop in south Florida, it put the Bruins on a collision course with Robo-running back Ron Dayne. The 5-foot-10 junior ended up leaving far more destruction in his wake at the Rose Bowl on Friday than Georges did around the Orange Bowl the last weekend of September.

By pushing back UCLA's game at Miami, it afforded the Hurricanes' football team time to hit its stride and the Bruins time to hit the wall. The Bruins' pursuit of perfection hit a dead end because they didn't play as well in December and January as they had in September and October while their final two opponents, it can be argued, played better.

``We peaked in the middle of the season,'' said junior offensive lineman Kris Farris. ``Our best game was at Arizona (on Oct. 10). Little did I know we were going to peak and go straight down.''

As any member of the Bowl Championship Series committee will tell you, 'tis a far graver sin to lose late in the season than early on. The Bruins would have to agree, having seen 10-2 from both sides now. They lost their opening two games in 1997 before stringing together 10 straight wins and strung together 10 straight wins this season before dropping their last two.

``When you lose the last two,'' said junior receiver Danny Farmer, ``it just kind of overrides everything else that you've accomplished.''

Say this about Farmer, there was no drop-off in his production; he came through with 13 catches for 277 yards and three scores against Miami and Wisconsin.

Alas, the same could not be said for the defense; it gave up 750 combined rushing yards in the final two games. Dayne scorched it for 246 yards, missing by one measly yard Charles White's 19-year-old Rose Bowl record.

The offense, on this day, wasn't much better. It ran into a red man's curve at the north goal in the third quarter. Wisconsin fans were wrapped around that end zone like a solid red scarf and they made it hard for the Bruins - who were appropriately designated the visitors - to hear a Cade McNown audible and that contributed to freshman DeShaun Foster's fumble inside the Badgers' 5-yard line.

The upside is Foster will only improve in the next couple of years. So, too, we trust, will the Bruins' postseason following. Wisconsin fans were dressed louder than the Bruins faithful - red overwhelms powder blue any day - and they made sure they were heard.

Why was anyone surprised so many of them made the trip out here? Duh! Where would you rather ring in the New Year, in 75 degree sunshine or 5 degree chill?

No one in the crowd of 93,872 would have been shocked if, late in the second quarter Gov. Pete Wilson had inspected the scene from high overhead in the omnipresent blimp and promptly declared the Bruins' defense a disaster area. By halftime safety Larry Atkins, the captain of the unit and one of its two senior starters, had joined a bandage brigade that already included erstwhile starters Micah Webb, Pete Holland and Jason Stephens.

Atkins suffered a sprained right knee and the Bruins never quite recovered, though a patchwork lineup performed valiantly in holding Wisconsin to a single score in the second half (Jamar Fletcher intercepted one of McNown's passes and ran it in for the other Wisconsin score in the final 30 minutes).

It'll be fitting if Atkins ends up having to have a magnetic resonance imaging test done on his knee. You see, the man who invented the now ubiquitous MRI, Raymond Damadian, is a Wisconsin graduate.

Offensive lineman Andy Meyers will be graduating from UCLA later this year. When he leaves he'll take with him fond memories of his senior season. Before you quibble over the degree of success achieved by this year's squad, listen to Meyers describe how the identical 10-2 seasons are different:

``Last year our team had so much more talent,'' Meyers said. ``If we had had the heart and attitude and camaraderie on that team that we've had from Day One this year, we would have won the (1997) national championship.''

Understand this: it was the early losses last year to Washington State and Tennessee that spurred the Bruins to re-commit themselves to a common goal and to one another. In those failures were planted the seeds of the success they since have enjoyed.

If the 16 Bruins starters who will return next year come back meaner, leaner and more focused, it'll be safe to look back on this season as an unqualified success.

``Now the young guys know what it's like to lose,'' Meyers said. ``We've won the Pac-10 title two years now and that gives UCLA something to build on.''

The foundation is strong, even if the finish was weak.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) Wisconsin's Ron Dayne blazes a trail toward the end zone without UCLA's Jason Stephens.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News

(2) Danny Farmer, who scored a second-quarter touchdown, didn't have the drop in production.

Myung J. Chun/Daily News