Game of the Year

Things have been looking up this season for the once-powerful Pacific Coast Football Conference, victim of six humiliating Rose Bowl defeats since World War II. In seven games with its bitter intersectional rivals from the Midwest's Big Ten, the P.C.C. has won five. In addition, for the first time in recent memory, the West Coast has had two undefeated powerhouses, ranked in the weekly polls' top four. The two, crosstown Los Angeles rivals: U.C.L.A., No. 3, and Southern California, No. 4.

By a happy circumstance of schedule making, the two titans met head-on last week for Rose Bowl honors and the presumed honor of paying back the Big Ten, with usurious interest, on New Year's Day. By another happy circumstance, it was television's game of the week. Millions of TV fans, as well as the 96,869 in Los Angeles' Memorial Coliseum, saw the game of the year.

Payoff Pass. For a while at the outset it appeared that the Southern California Trojans' brilliant Tailback Jimmy Sears (TIME, Nov. 3) might be the goat of the game. A Sears fumble on his own 30-yd. line set up the first scoring play for U.C.L.A.'s Bruins: a 22-yd. field goal. But early in the second period Sears put his team back into the lead with an impromptu play that brought the crowd roaring to its feet. Running interference for teammate Al Carmichael, Sears saw his teammate stopped after a ten-yard gain, yelled for a lateral, gathered the toss in and outraced the off-balance Bruins on a 60-yd. touchdown jaunt.

The Bruins charged back, forcing a safety with a tooth-rattling tackle behind the Trojan goal line. Moments later, fired by star Tailback Paul Cameron, U.C.L.A. struck again, this time with a touchdown that left Southern California trailing at halftime, 12-7.

Two-Way Player. Backs to the wall on their own 18-yd. line following the second-half kickoff, Sears & Co. (he plays both offense and defense) held fast, then broke the game open with another dazzling and impromptu burst. This time, Sears was a bystander as Defensive Tackle Elmer Willhoite intercepted a Cameron pass and chugged his beefy, 210-lb. frame down the sideline for 72 yards. For the next three downs the U.C.L.A. line held firm. On fourth down, with four yards to go for the touchdown, it was all up to Jimmy Sears.

Taking the direct pass from center, he stepped back, his arm cocked to pass. Then, tucking the ball under his arm, he faked a plunge toward the goal line. At the last moment, just as the converging Bruin linemen had him hemmed in, Sears lobbed a floater to Halfback Carmichael for the winning touchdown. Final score, after the teams had battled around midfield in foggy, floodlit gloom through the last quarter: Sears & Co. 14, U.C.L.A. 12.

Southern California's Rose Bowl opponent, named this week: Wisconsin, which tied with Minnesota, 21-21, while Purdue was beating Indiana, 21-16. Both Purdue and Wisconsin ended with identical conference records (four victories, one tie, one loss); the Big Ten selection surprised many fans because Wisconsin had already lost a 20-7 midseason game to U.C.L.A. Other results: Michigan State, the nation's No. 1 team, ended its undefeated season using 60 players against outmanned Marquette, won 62-13. Georgia Tech, No. 2, used 62 players to beat Florida State, 30-0. Maryland, No. 8, took its second straight beating, a 27-7 shellacking from Alabama.

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