After spending the last decade or more in the shadow of the Trojans the No. 9 UCLA Bruins are dominating the Pac-12 South and find themselves ranked in the top 10 for the first time since 2005. On Saturday Jim Mora's team will travel to Palo Alto to take on No. 13 Stanford as they try to recover from a surprise loss against Utah last week.
It will be the third time these two teams have faced off in the last calendar year with Stanford winning both the regular season matchup and the Pac-12 championship last year. Mora told ESPN that revenge isn't motivating his Bruins team.
"I think you have to be careful when you make it about redemption," Mora said. "Then you start to get emotional. It has to be about us. We have goals and expectations. We want to play with emotion but not be emotional. They beat us twice last year, (including) in the Pac-12 championship game. When those things become a factor, I think you are making a mistake Stanford is an outstanding football team."
Stanford coach David Shaw also wants to make sure that his team keeps a sense of perspective going into the game. After last week's loss to Utah it would be easy for the Cardinal to move into panic mode, especially with the juggernaut that is Oregon in their division.
"The first word I used is perspective," Shaw told ESPN. "Let's look at where we are. Let's look at how we got here. Let's look at where we're going. That's the most important thing for me. In order to really go forward, you have to look at where you are."
Both teams will have to overcome some serious injury issues in the game. UCLA will more than likely be without their leading rusher Jordan James. While they were able to beat California handily last week without out him the Golden Bears aren't exactly the same level of competition that the Cardinal are.
Stanford's defensive line, one of the team's strengths, will be without end Henry Anderson for at least another couple of weeks. His absence has been felt as the Cardinal have given up over 400 yards the last two weeks; something they have not done since early in 2011, according to ESPN.
The game between the two Pac-12 powers is scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. ET. A live radio broadcast of the game can be heard at the following link. A live stream of the game can be seen at this link.
