BRUINS MAKE DEFENSIVE MESS.

Byline: Karen Crouse

They callously exploited the handicapped. The nerve of the Stanford players - especially their vertically challenged receiver Troy Walters - taking advantage of a gimpy UCLA team like that. And in front of 47,432 witnesses, no less. Shouldn't somebody have told the Cardinal players they have no business being parked in the choicest spot in the Pacific-10 standings?

Walters and backup quarterback Joe Borchard were the worst. They were so heartless, the Stanford band's halftime show could have been about them.

By the time the band scurried onto the field, formed the outline of a wheelchair and wailed away, the team many pundits picked to finish last in the Pacific-10 had, on the strength of its aerial attack, built an 18-point lead on the reigning conference champions.

The Bruins were banged up on offense and dazed on defense but the white towel UCLA athletic official Ed Kezirian was waving wildly on the sidelines in the second half didn't signify surrender. The Bruins, deficiencies and all, determinedly soldiered on and whittled the Cardinal's lead to three midway through the fourth quarter before succumbing, 42-32.

UCLA won the second half but lost the war. For the Bruins, a slew of moral victories could be as good as it gets this season unless they get back all of their heavy artillery.

Drew Bennett, in the first half of his first start since Cory Paus was sidelined with sore ribs, consistently released his passes a split-second late. That afforded the Stanford defenders just enough time to get a hand on the football or find the step they had lost on a receiver.

Try as he might, Bennett couldn't lay the football in Danny Farmer's hands. The superlative senior receiver finished without a catch. Freddie Mitchell, the Bruins' bookend playmaker, had no receptions in the second half, this after catching nine passes the previous week against Fresno State. ``We missed some balls we've got to complete,'' was how head coach Bob Toledo diplomatically put it.

For the UCLA players on the sideline who could bear to watch, Borchard provided a primer. Like Bennett, Borchard was thrust into action when the Cardinal's starter, Todd Husak, was lost to bruised ribs on the third offensive series.

Unlike UCLA, the Cardinal had the depth and seasoning to not just survive the loss, but thrive. Borchard, who grew up in Camarillo, completed seven of his first eight passes, two of them for touchdowns. He finished with 324 passing yards and five touchdowns and boasted the longest run from scrimmage by either team (56 yards).

As the game dragged on the UCLA fans who made the 400-mile trip must have felt like they had taken a wrong turn and ended up in Miami; the Cardinal's 672 yards of total offense were just 17 fewer yards than the Hurricanes racked up against the Bruins last December.

When it came to entertaining the home crowd, Borchard did everything but push the Cardinal's tree mascot around in his wheelchair (that was left for somebody else).

So many of Borchard's bullets hit Walters in full stride it's a small wonder the 5-foot-8 flanker didn't cross the end zone more than three times.

``Their pass offense is legit. I was just kind of in shock watching it,'' said UCLA running back DeShaun Foster, who outran his counterpart Kerry Carter (100 net yards to 31) despite being hobbled by a right knee sprain he said is 65 percent healed.

It's true; Borchard and Walters were the next best thing to Barnum and Bailey. Make no mistake: The Bruins' callow cornerbacks - freshmen Joe Hunter and Ricky Manning Jr. - were the ones operating without a net.

``I caught myself watching them sometimes,'' said Farmer of Borchard and Walters, who burned UCLA's secondary for the longest touchdown completion in conference history (98 yards) in the third minute of the third quarter.

In the 14 seconds it took the Cardinal to increase its lead to 28-3, a lot of Bruins saw their 1999 season flash before their eyes.

Forty-seven of the 60 UCLA players who made the trip were freshmen, sophomores or walk-ons. Included in that mix was Lovell Houston, who had the unenviable task of making his college debut immediately after Walters' electrifying score.

It was sort of like following Bruce Springsteen on stage after the Boss has brought down the house. Houston, though, clearly wasn't cowed; he looked like he was born to run when he carried the ensuing kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown.

It was the first play of the rest of UCLA's season. It has to be, if the Bruins have designs on defending their title.

``We could have folded at 28 to 3,'' said senior fullback Durell Price. ``Against a team with big-play guys like that, it would have been easy to go into the tank. We came up short but we had Stanford biting its nails all the way down to the two-minute warning.''

With senior cornerback Jason Bell felled by injury, Hunter was the hunted and Manning, manhandled. Afterward they looked like shell-shocked survivors of some natural disaster. They couldn't hide from Borchard and, to their credit, didn't hide from the media.

``It was a real learning experience,'' Hunter said with a sigh. ``I've got to adjust to the ball better. I feel I was in position to make some big plays but I didn't turn and look for the ball. I was just playing the hands, the receiver.''

Football players are like elephants; they never forget losses. If not for a goal-line fumble, the Cardinal would have ended the Bruins' conference winning streak at 12 last October. Motivated by that memory, they snapped it Saturday at 15.

``I want to know how good it feels,'' senior cornerback Frank Primus chanted as he skipped into the victorious locker room.

Primus knew what the Bruins have just learned, that to really feel the pleasure you first have to experience the pain.

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PHOTO Stanford flanker Troy Walters, center, shakes hands with UCLA defensive end Sean Phillips. Walters scored three touchdowns.

Paul Sakuma/Associated Press