PASADENA, Calif. — Mark Kornfeld's dream turned into John Gockman's nightmare Saturday at the Rose Bowl.

Down 6-3 to UCLA with three minutes to go, the Illinois offense had snapped awake from its three-quarter nap to march to the UCLA 21-yard line.

"We were talking in the huddle, saying this is what we came here for," said Kornfeld, the receiver responsible for 35 of those yards gained. "When you're a little kid you dream of being down by three, playing in the Rose Bowl taking it down with a minute and a half to go."

The Illini had set up Gockman for a 43-yard field goal on fourth down with 32 seconds left in the game. The ball felt "good" coming off Gockman's foot, but it swung wide left.

Any of the Illini's rose-colored fantasies ended in a 6-3 defeat.

"It doesn't matter if it was 6-3 or 20-17. We lost by three points and I missed a field goal at the end of the game," Gockman said in a trance-like state after the game.

Gockman doesn't experience bad dreams often — it was the first field goal he has missed this year. He had gone 5-for-5 this year and only missed two 40-plus field goals last year.

"I told him to keep his head up … we're going to need him to make that kick at some point," Illinois head coach Ron Turner said. "I also told him that one play does not determine the outcome of the game. We had a lot of other chances to make plays; they just weren't as visible as that play."

It was the Illini offense and special teams that will give Turner night sweats this week. For the first time since 1998, Illinois didn't find the end zone, and the Illini's one field goal didn't come until midway through the third quarter.

"They did stuff we prepared for, but they also did a lot of different stuff, too," Illinois quarterback Jon Beutjer said of the UCLA defense. "It took us a while offensively to get it going. We're going to look at the tape tomorrow (Sunday) and see that we should have gotten things done a lot quicker, but we didn't."

Beutjer threw three interceptions, the first of which came on Illinois' first drive of the game.

The Illini racked up six penalties for 40 yards lost.

And cornerback Christian Morton fumbled and lost a punt return in the second quarter, which the Bruins returned for their second field goal of the game.

"We're a young football team, and we've got to quit making these mistakes," Turner said. "We've got to grow up in that phase."

After dozing off to allow Illinois State more than 500 yards of offense on Sept. 6, the Illini defense was the one saving point in an otherwise snooze of a game.

The defense allowed UCLA just more than 200 yards total offense and stopped 12 of 17 three-point conversions. They recorded five sacks and fed constant pressure to Bruins sophomore quarterback Drew Olson.

"Our defense rose to the occasion," Turner said. "The defensive coaches came up with a really good plan. They did some things differently, threw some wrinkles at them and our guys played great."

The defense didn't allow a UCLA score after 8:45 in the second quarter to set up the Illinois comeback.

Gockman scored Illinois' only field goal with 4:15 to play in the third quarter. Beutjer put together the Illini's final 60-yard drive with six completions, but he missed two end zone passes and the Illini were called for a five-yard illegal procedure penalty to set up Gockman for the kick.

Despite dropping to 1-2 for the season, the Illini insisted that last year's 1-5 start won't become a recurring nightmare.

"I don't think it's going to go into the hole like it did last year," Beutjer said. "We have a great team, and the attitude is really good."