UCLA is thought of as the little brother to UC Berkeley.
The L.A. campus of the University of California was established more than 50 years after the Berkeley campus, and the Angelenos have been charged with stealing Berkeley’s mascot, colors and fight song.
Although the Bruins lead the overall “Battles of the UC” by 18 games since 2007, UCLA has been playing like the little brother as of late. The Bruins (3-4, 2-2 Pac-12) have lost three straight to the Golden Bears (4-3, 1-3), meaning many players on the UCLA team have yet to find success against their big brother from the north.
“Playing California as your sister school is a huge deal every year,” said UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel, who played at UCLA during a stretch of 18 consecutive Bruin victories in the rivalry. “They’ve had our number the last few, so it’s important that we put together a great effort and see if we can’t get our third conference win.”
Not only did Neuheisel have success against Cal as a player, he was 3-1 against the Bears at Washington before his rocky coaching career in Westwood began. Not only has Cal won the last three contests, it has won in dominating fashion. A season ago, the wave of momentum that UCLA built with an upset win over Texas came crashing to the East Bay shore in Berkeley.
Redshirt junior quarterback Kevin Prince was playing on an injured right knee that would later be surgically repaired, and the Golden Bears routed the Bruins from the beginning, jumping out to a 28-0 lead at halftime. The Bears’ last trip to the Rose Bowl saw Cal’s talented running back corps run to a 45-26 win.
The oft-injured Prince may know Cal better than any other conference opponent as the Bears are the only Pac-12 team that Prince will be playing for the third time in his career. His redshirt freshman season was a sort of a coming out party for Prince, as he threw for 311 yards but threw the game away with a late interception.
“I have a lot more experience than I did that first year I played them, and I’m healthier than I was last year,” Prince said. “They’re very stout and powerful up front. They play the run well and they’ve got very athletic defensive backs. Their secondary is great. We’re going to have to be able to execute and make plays despite their strengths.”
If Prince is right about the Cal secondary, its defensive backs should have a much easier job this week as UCLA will be missing four receivers because of suspensions levied by the Pac-12 conference after the brawl that broke out in the team’s loss to Arizona last week. The receivers ““ redshirt sophomores Shaquelle Evans and Ricky Marvray, junior Randall Carroll and senior Taylor Embree ““ account for more than 30 percent of the team’s total catches.
With a depleted receiving corps coupled with two other players missing the game for suspensions, team captain and redshirt junior Johnathan Franklin says the Bruins need more team leadership to avoid falling two games below .500 and falling to Cal for the fourth year in a row.
“On a 3-4 team, we all need to be accountable for our own actions,” Franklin said. “We’re 3-4 for a reason. We all have to look in the mirror rather than point fingers. Leadership needs to step up.”