ESPN College Football

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- The No. 20 UCLA Bruins escaped with a win -- and a lesson.

"We got a wake-up call. We learned we're not as good as we think we are," UCLA coach Karl Dorrell said after the Bruins scored with 1:08 remaining to pull out a 21-17 victory over Washington on Saturday night.

Drew Olson threw for a pair of second-half touchdowns and took No. 20 UCLA on a long scoring march in the closing minutes to rally the Bruins from a 17-7 deficit heading into the fourth quarter.

Maurice Drew dived over from the 1-yard line to give the heavily favored Bruins (4-0, 1-0 Pac-10) their first lead of the game.

"It was good for us," Olson said after the Bruins survived their first real scare of the season. "It was gut-check time being down 10-0 at halftime. It was nice to see how the guys responded, and hopefully we can build character from it. A couple of times we found ourselves getting tight and jumping offsides."

The Bruins were penalized 13 times for 110 yards, Olson threw a pair of first-half interceptions, and the Huskies' defense held UCLA's running game in check, including limiting Drew to 33 yards on 14 carries.

"Most of the game, we kept their offense bottled up. But we didn't finish, and they did, and that was the difference," said first-year Washington coach Tyrone Willingham, who went 3-4 against UCLA when he coached at Stanford.

"They came up and found a way to make some plays. We did some good things, too, but obviously not enough of them. We have yet to find the right formula to win."

Olson threw a 4-yard touchdown pass to Marcedes Lewis early in the third quarter, added a 1-yarder to Michael Pitre on the first play of the fourth quarter, then guided the Bruins on a 73-yard drive to the winning score.

After going 9-of-18 for 77 yards and throwing the two interceptions in the first half, Olson finished 29-of-44 for 287 yards and the two touchdowns.

He completed six consecutive passes after missing on his first attempt of the final drive, including a 39-yarder to Marcus Everett that moved the ball down to the Washington 20. Drew scored three plays later.

"Our guys just started to turn it up and we started to make some plays," Olson said of the drive. "We called some plays that we hadn't called throughout the game."

Drew called it "a heart drive."

Washington had a 50-yard scoring run by Louis Rankin nullified by a holding call late in the game and the Huskies instead had to punt the ball away with 3:39 remaining. Olson then took the Bruins down to their third touchdown.

The win was the Bruins' fifth in a row against the Huskies, and their eighth in the last nine meetings.

The Huskies' defense essentially shut down Drew, who ran for a UCLA record 322 yards and five touchdowns in the Bruins' 37-31 come-from-behind win in Seattle last year. He did have an apparent 65-yard touchdown on a punt return called back in the second quarter of the victory this time.

Kenny James ran 20 yards for a touchdown to give Washington a 10-0 lead early in the second quarter.

Evan Knudson, who later was short from 55 yards and wide left from 28 yards, put the Huskies on the board with his 18-yard field goal in the opening quarter.