Michael Conroy / AP

Notre Dame wide receiver Jeff Samardzija, left, outruns UCLA's Chris Horton, center, and Trey Brown after catching a pass from Brady Quinn to score a game-winning 45-yard touchdown with 27 seconds remaining in the game on Saturday.

Samardzija said he saw Quinn rolling so he stayed with his quarterback.

“He saw me, got it to me, and there really was no thinking involved — you’re just trained, it’s like a little dog, you’re just trying to get to the end zone,” he said. “We’ll say there was no doubt, but who knows.”

Some of the Irish players had doubt.

“I looked up and Samardzija made that last move, I thought he was going to fall down at the 10 or something like that,” guard Bob Morton said. “But he just does what Jeff does and he stayed on his feet and found the end zone.”

Dorrell said the Bruins didn’t try to pressure Quinn as much on the final series.

“We tried to play more coverage,” Dorrell said. “Brady did a nice job of staying alive — staying alive in the pocket and moving out of the pocket and rolling out and throwing on the run.”

Quinn was 27-of-45 passing for 304 yards with two TD passes to Samardzija, who tied the school record of 22 career touchdown catches held by Derrick Mayes in 1995. Samardzija, who had a 2-yard TD pass in the first quarter, finished with eight catches for 118 yards.

Patrick Cowan, making just his second start in place of injured Ben Olson, was 16-of-32 passing for 217 yards and completed two of the three longest passes for UCLA this season, both for touchdowns. He completed passes of 54 yards to Marcus Everett and a 36-yarder to tight end William Snead.

Despite the fact the Irish didn’t play well until the end, Weis was happy.

“I’m not going to feel miserable about this win, I promise you,” Weis said. “You want to be miserable, fine. I’m going to be happy. Any time you win a game like that — we’re very fortunate to walk out of there with scoring a touchdown inside of 30 seconds to go with no timeouts left. Sign me up.”

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