STOP SIGN UCLA NEEDS WIN OVER ASU TO PREVENT ANOTHER COLLAPSE.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

The UCLA football team hereby announces a schedule change. The 2005 Bruins' defining moment has been moved to Saturday, 4 o'clock, in Pasadena.

A change was required after their perfect-season bubble popped on a desert cactus thorn over the weekend in a 52-14 loss to Arizona that was not as close as the score would indicate.

Until a few days ago, the Bruins might have thought their defining moment had already happened.

Maybe it was the Sept. 17 victory over Oklahoma, which heralded their return to the big time; or the Oct. 8 comeback against Cal, which stirred up the team-of-destiny talk.

Until a few days ago, the Bruins might have thought their defining moment was weeks away.

Maybe it would be the Dec. 3 USC game. Or a BCS bowl game.

Now the Bruins' game of the year is one that was on nobody's must-watch list at the start of the year.

Saturday, 4 p.m., at the Rose Bowl, vs. unranked Arizona State.

``We realize this is probably the biggest game of our careers, our lives, whatever,'' said Spencer Havner, the Bruins' star linebacker.

The Bruins will play to get back the magic they had when they were 8-0 and No. 7 in the Associated Press poll and No. 5 in the Bowl Championship Series rankings.

And they'll play to refute what everybody with a sophomore's grasp of history has been saying about them the past few days.

This twilight game against Arizona State will decide how head coach Karl Dorrell's third UCLA team is remembered.

Will it be as a vastly improved team of character and guts? Or as another in a long line of Westwood football teams that start fast and go in the tank as soon as one little thing goes wrong?

I heard somebody in a football press box say - as we watched the Bruins lose to Arizona on television - that UCLA was even-money to win another game the rest of the season. That's the Bruins' reputation since the Bob Toledo era, when the 1998 season went from 10-0 to utter despair seemingly in the blink of an eye, as defensive rollovers against Miami and Wisconsin spawned a virtually annual series of late-autumn collapses.

The 2000 Bruins went 4-1 to start, 2-5 to finish. The 2001 Bruins went 6-0, then 1-4. The 2002 Bruins went 4-1, then 4-4.

Toledo went, the trend stayed.

The 2003 Bruins went 6-2, then 0-5. The 2004 Bruins went 4-1, then 2-5. The 2005 Bruins went 8-0, then went bust last Saturday in Tucson, Ariz.

``I understand, from a historical nature, what most people in here are going to write about,'' Dorrell told reporters on Monday.

I'd hate to disappoint. So here's more history:

From 1998 to 2004, the Bruins have gone 37-19 in August, September and October, and 10-19 in November, December and January.

Is this just because they've played tougher opponents late in the season? Not really.

In the same seven years of bad pluck, the Bruins went 12-8 against ranked teams through October, and 1-9 against ranked teams from November on.

It wasn't just the loss to Arizona that raised fears of another collapse. It's that it was a 38-point loss, the most one-sided ever for a UCLA football team ranked that high against an opponent ranked nowhere.

If this were any other school, you'd shrug it off as one bad game - ``a hiccup, a blip, a roadblock or whatever you want to call it,'' as Dorrell put it Monday. When it's UCLA, however, you have to ask if this was the Bruins assuming the pike position on the way to an all-out dive.

Dorrell was ready for those questions.

``This team is not going to quit, I can tell you that right now,'' Dorrell said. ``They've shown character all season. ... They've performed under pressure all season, and they'll perform under pressure on Saturday.''

I don't doubt this team has character. I'm just not sure this team's incredible run of comebacks - from 10 points down against Washington, 12 against Cal, 21 against Washington State, 21 against Stanford - is the proof of it.

Why are comebacks the mark of character, anyway? How about using some of that moral fiber to avoid falling behind week after week?

The Bruins' loss was inevitable, since they eventually were going to dig a hole too deep to climb out of. So this season was never about going undefeated, beating USC for the Pac-10 championship and going to the Rose Bowl national-title game.

In the Bruins' bid to remake the image of their football program, their eight wins in a row were never as important as the aftermath of their loss.

In 2003, Dorrell's first year, the year of the 6-2 start and 0-5 finish, the whisper was that some team leaders with NFL plans refused to play with minor injuries. Havner was a sophomore on that team.

``I see us staying together more (this year), without outside distractions,'' Havner said. ``We do have three games ahead of us. But we're putting the emphasis on this game to put that to rest.''

Beat Arizona State and there is no collapse. Then the Bruins can lose to top-ranked USC without incurring ridicule. Then a bowl victory makes it their second 10-win season ever.

It's all on the line Saturday, 4 p.m., Rose Bowl, vs. Arizona State.

There's an 8-0 start to live up to. There's history to live down.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) UCLA coach Karl Dorrell, above center, will try to get his Bruins up for Arizona State after being routed by Arizona. ``This team is not going to quit, I can tell you that right now,'' Dorrell said. ``They've shown character all season.''

(2) Since Karl Dorrell took over in 2003, UCLA is 1-9 from November on, a trend that has plagued UCLA since 1998.

Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images