That was fun.
It was genuinely fun, the first time in a long time that a UCLA
football game has felt like that.
With UCLA’s 41-24 dismantling of No. 21 Oklahoma (A ranked
team! That played in the national championship last year!) at the
Rose Bowl on Saturday, the Bruins reminded Bruin fans why the rest
of this country seems to care so much about this crazy game of
football.
When things go right, it can be a heck of a lot of fun for
everybody involved.
“It’s a totally new feeling,” said linebacker
Spencer Havner, whose fumble recovery and touchdown in the third
quarter was perhaps UCLA’s biggest play of the game.
“It’s something I’ve never felt before.
It’s good to finally have that feeling at UCLA.”
After that game it’s hard not to feel proud to be a Bruin.
It’s next to impossible not to be happy for coach Karl
Dorrell. And it’s going to be exceedingly difficult not to
get overexcited about the future.
But it is pretty easy to make the argument that this was the
first time in the last three years, and certainly the first time in
Dorrell’s career, that the Bruins won a truly big game, the
kind of game that a program can point to and actually be believed
when it says that it’s making progress.
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Dorrell say
that he’s excited about the direction this program is headed.
Probably hundreds. It’s always the same quote, always the
same tone. Now I might be starting to understand what he keeps
talking about, because I’m excited about the future, too.
I’m excited that Drew Olson looks like the kind of
quarterback that is capable of winning a lot of games, playing
within himself and making smart decisions.
I’m excited that an opposing team can do its best to key
on the run (and Oklahoma did a very good job of that), and UCLA has
the ability to beat you in a variety of other ways.
I’m excited that the Bruins don’t have to play this
weekend, because that means that there’s absolutely no
possibility for a letdown after a huge win.
I’m confident that UCLA will be a better team Oct. 1
against Washington than they were on Saturday, and I suppose that
says something about this coaching staff. The team appears to have
bought into what Dorrell and his assistants are trying to get
across, and after Saturday, more and more Bruin fans will probably
start to do the same.
“It’s a huge win for our program,” Havner
said. “We need to get our confidence going, knowing that we
beat a legitimate opponent.”
It’s so refreshing to have this feeling in September.
It’s kinda nice to get phone calls from friends asking what
the heck happened to the Bruins.
Well, not that nice. The fact that the first question is,
“What the hell happened today?” after a big win says
something truly revealing about this program.
UCLA isn’t “there” yet. In fact, the Bruins
aren’t even close. But they’re certainly on the road to
respectability, which leads to the road that travels
“there.”
There have been times in the last two years where it
wasn’t too much of a stretch to think that the Bruins had
turned a corner. Each time they hadn’t. But maybe, just
maybe, this game was it. A traditional powerhouse in something of a
must-win situation came to the Rose Bowl and got thumped on
national television.
“Of course it feels good to be put back on the map,”
tight end Marcedes Lewis said. “This is big for the
program.”
Fun, huh?
Right now I’m sitting in the Burbank airport, finishing up
this column. There are a handful of Bruin fans here, laughing,
smiling, appearing visibly excited about this team.
There are also a couple of Sooner fans in the airport.
They’re sitting quietly, reading books. They’re not
having fun.
That’s because right now, it’s the Bruins’
turn.
E-mail regan at dregan@media.ucla.edu if you also believe
the Bruins have a chance to accomplish something
“special” this season.