DUCK,DUCK, DUCK . . . BRUIN UCLA LOOKS TO END OREGON'S 16-GAME HOME-WINNING STREAK TONIGHT.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

EUGENE, Ore. - No matter how many correct answers it delivers, the UCLA football team keeps getting hit with a new pop quiz each week.

Do they belong on the same field as Alabama? (Rolled over Tide).

Can they avoid a letdown against Fresno State? (A raisin d'etre, barely).

Will Michigan make the Alabama game a fluke? (Maize and Blew it).

And now that the once unranked Bruins have climbed to No. 6 in the writers' poll, they are faced with a new question for today's nationally televised Pacific-10 Conference opener at Oregon: Can they win on the road?

All of UCLA's accomplishments this season have come in the friendly confines of the Rose Bowl, so the test now is to see how the Bruins respond when there isn't a home crowd to rally them.

This test will be just as challenging as the other three. For if you're going to win on the road, there's no place tougher to do it than Oregon's cozy Autzen Stadium, which will be filled - just as it is every Saturday - beyond the 41,698 capacity.

It's a place where Oregon has won 16 consecutive games, the fourth-longest streak in the nation and the longest in the Pac-10 since the 1930s.

``This is going to be a very tough, hostile, loud, very difficult environment,'' said UCLA head coach Bob Toledo, who spent six seasons in the mid-80s as the Ducks' offensive coordinator. ``I saw that (atmosphere) getting built and I'll tell you what, it's pretty wild up there right now. They've got great fans, they got a great little stadium and they've got a heck of a football team.''

Oddsmakers put so much stock in Oregon's streak that they established the Ducks as one-point favorites. The bettors put so much faith in it, they've pushed the latest line to three points.

This will be the smallest crowd UCLA plays in front of this season - only Washington State and Oregon State have smaller stadiums in the Pac-10 - but it will rival Husky Stadium as the loudest.

There's no track around the field, leaving the first row of seats just 30 feet from the sideline. Players on the Bruins' bench will have little trouble figuring out for whom the nearby fans are rooting.

As for the noise, Oregon State coach Dennis Erickson said he was caught unprepared last season when he failed to put in an audible system with hand signals. USC's offensive line committed five false starts in last season's triple-overtime loss here.

There is also the matter of the turf. Autzen Stadium is one of four fields in the Pac-10 with artificial turf, which plays much faster than grass. To avoid rug burn, many Bruins will wear neoprene sleeves over their elbows. They may have additional aches and pains on Sunday, too, but they aren't complaining.

``We'll go play in a parking lot,'' receiver Brian Poli-Dixon said. ``It doesn't matter.''

In addition to the atmosphere, the Ducks also have become one of the Pac-10's best programs. In fact, in the 1990s, they owned a better record (70-48) than USC and UCLA.

``Certainly, the crowd, the noise, the environment that is Autzen Stadium, the surface that we play on - there's some magic going on there,'' Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti, in his sixth year, said of the streak. ``We've pulled out some games. We've played well. There's a certain belief/trust system that is prevalent there. Other than that, I've got no reason for it.''

The Bruins might have an answer for the streak - they haven't played there in a while.

They were the last team to win at Autzen Stadium, a convincing 39-31 victory in 1997, and are 10-1 here overall. Moreover, they've beaten the Ducks four consecutive times, though they've won at the Rose Bowl on the final play of the game the last two seasons.

They'll also be the highest-ranked team to play at Oregon during the streak.

On the other hand, the Bruins come in with a five-game road losing streak dating back to 1998. Ten of their 22 starters have never started a road victory - including quarterback Ryan McCann.

``You always worry about that,'' Toledo said. ``He's been in some big stadiums because I've taken him with us, but he hasn't been behind the center. You always wonder what a guy's going to do when the lights go on and the crowd starts yelling at him and calling him bad names.''

And the Bruins will be called plenty of them. Now that they've beaten Michigan and Alabama, they've gone from hunter to hunted.

``The bulls-eye is going to get bigger now,'' Toledo said. ``People are always going to want to get us. It's like the old gunslinger - the guy with the black hat, the black suit and pearl-handled guns. Everybody wants to knock you out.''

UCLA at OREGON

Today

12:30 p.m.

Fox Sports Net/1150-AM