COLLEGE FOOTBALL / DAILY REPORT : UCLA : Merten Can’t Fly, but He Can Kick

The kicks got easier as the game went on. “That first kickoff wasn’t so good,” Bjorn Merten said, “and I was nervous on the first field goal. Not as much on the second.”

He was ready for a third.

Merten, a redshirt freshman from Centerville, Va., won the kicking job only four days before the Bruins’ season-opening loss to California, 27-25, on Saturday, and he made field goals of 36 and 30 yards, plus two extra points. Merten was getting set to attempt a game-winning field goal in the closing seconds when an interception stopped a Bruin drive on the Bear 20.

It would have been about a 40-yard effort, well within his range.

“I can kick pretty consistently from 53 yards in,” Merten said.

He came to UCLA after considering offers from the Naval Academy and William & Mary, both of whom were considering him as a kicker and quarterback. He did both in high school in an option offense.

The Naval Academy appointment was set with Merten, the son of a retired Naval officer now living in San Diego, ready to carry on the family tradition. “I went to Annapolis and took an eye test, and they said I failed a depth perception test,” Merten said. “I wanted to fly and they said I couldn’t. I didn’t want to stay on a ship all the time. It made the decision to come here easier.”

*

Sharmon Shah, a sophomore from Dorsey High, showed he is recovered from arthroscopic knee surgery, breaking loose for a long run in practice. . . . The Bruins are so short of receivers because of injuries that assistant coach Rick Neuheisel caught one ball in a passing drill and starting quarterback Wayne Cook caught one over the middle from backup Ryan Fien. . . . The Nebraska game, on Sept. 18, will be Terry Donahue’s 200th as coach of the Bruins.