TRUTH IS, TOLEDO WILL SAY IT.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Bob Toledo would prefer you think of it as tough love, the kind a demanding father dishes out because he cares.

``Try not to make it sound like I'm ripping him,'' Toledo told me this week.

This was not long after the UCLA football coach got through ripping his quarterback.

``I'm sorry that people take it the wrong way,'' he said with an I-can't- help-it shrug.

Whereupon he expressed a little more of his frustration with the talented but intractable quarterback Ryan McCann, as I scribbled down the pointed quotes on my notepad.

Whatever he chooses to call it, and however people might take it, Toledo's approach to motivating his players is different from most college coaches'. And it will be tested today when McCann leads the 13th-ranked Bruins into a pivotal game against third-ranked Michigan at the Rose Bowl.

Ever since McCann gained a tenuous hold on the UCLA quarterback job because of Cory Paus' injury, Toledo has been needling the sophomore, and quite publicly, at that.

``He's got to improve,'' Toledo said at his Monday press conference after the victory over Alabama, in which McCann had what looked like a respectable afternoon's work on the stat sheet.

Toledo added a dig at McCann's slow trigger: ``When receivers are open, he wants them to be more open.''

The tone didn't improve after Toledo and offensive coordinator Alan Borges decided to replace McCann with Scott McEwan at halftime of last Saturday's victory over Fresno State, only to reinstate McCann for the game against Michigan.

``I told him he's going to be the starter again, but he's got to improve,'' Toledo said on Monday. ``If he can do it, he's going to continue to be the quarterback. If not, he's going to get yanked.''

Toledo says he tells the press nothing he hasn't already told his players. He says he even warns them about what they're likely to read in the papers. He can be as rough on stars named McNown as on question marks named McCann. And he says it all with a twinkle in his eye, without so much as a malicious syllable.

So it's not as if he's saying anything his teen-age players shouldn't be able to handle.

Nevertheless, after having your senses dulled by years of listening to the droning, insipid, truth-spinning language of most coaches, you find yourself checking your hearing after a session with Bob Toledo. You keep asking yourself, ``Did he really say what I thought he said?'' (Yes, he probably did.)

On the sideline, calling plays, he is full of tricks, reverses and fakes. Off the field, doing a coach's hardest work, he is straight-forward, shoot-from-the-hip, blunt.

``I'm honest to a fault,'' Toledo said, modestly.

It takes a confident man to let his thoughts go forth unfiltered. Imagine taking a poke at the Bruins' fans, players and opponents in one swipe, as Toledo did a couple of days after only 45,000 attended the narrow win over Fresno State.

``It's obvious our kids and our fans performed to the level of the competition,'' Toledo said.

You'd think this tell-it-like-it-is approach would cause some hurt feelings. But Toledo insists he has never had a player come to him to complain.

``I've had a defensive coordinator come to me. . .,'' he said, laughing.

That defensive coordinator was Nick Aliotti, whom Toledo roasted on an open fire during the Bruins' late-season collapse in 1998.

``I told him, 'Well, if you'd done what I asked you to do, I wouldn't have had to say those things,' '' Toledo said this week. Aliotti resigned in the offseason.

Where does this style come from?

Part of it, Toledo said, is simply his personality.

``I don't like to be pacified or told things that aren't true,'' said the former San Francisco State quarterback. He does unto others accordingly.

Part of it is a sincere desire to explain himself to the fans. If fans aren't told that McCann was failing to run some of the plays he was assigned, Toledo said, how could they understand why he was benched following a 12-for-23, 106-yard, one-touchdown half?

And part of it is a calculated effort by Toledo to motivate. Some players react to honey, others to vinegar.

``Everybody's got a different hot button,'' he said at the edge of the on-campus practice field. ``And obviously (with McCann), I haven't found the right button yet. I'm down to my last button.''

For his part, McCann seems to take no offense. The 20-year-old said he thinks he responds to both praise and criticism.

I asked Toledo what kind of quotes McCann should expect to read next week if he doesn't show improvement against Michigan.

``There may not be a next week,'' the coach said. ``I may have to throw my child out of the house.''