Fans file into the Rose Bowl before Saturday’s game against the University of Colorado. 57,334 fans were in attendance at the last home game of the season.
Disclaimer: I am a rogue journalist.
Certain long-standing conditions of the trade dictate that I should spend football games in a catatonically sealed press box, clad in professional attire and engaging in unspoken contests with my fellow journalists to see which of us can come up with the most popular Tweets.
It’s a great setup, to be sure. We’re even fed in the press box, and if this isn’t the first column of mine that you’ve read, you know how important my stomach is to me.
But sometimes, you get offers you can’t refuse.
So it was that on the coldest night Pasadena has seen since the Ice Age, I found myself with a large letter “C” painted on my bare torso (I’d say “in the interests of full disclosure,” but I guess that’s only half disclosure).
The oh-so-popular group of senior guys dumb and brilliant enough to don straw hats, pants and not much else at home football games were kind enough to extend to me an invite to join their ranks for my last home football game.
Of course, that meant that I would get to show the world my upper body for the better part of three hours. Again, you know how important my stomach is to me.
Where better to gauge the feelings of the UCLA fan base than in the vanguard of the students themselves? Many braved the cold and generated one of the more impressive turnouts of the season.
Did that have a lot to do with the fact that Colorado seemed like a beatable opponent? Indeed. Does this school deserve a football team that plays a schedule where most teams seem beatable, because the team is that good? Indeed.
There was a near-tangible vibe passing through the student section on Saturday night, and I’m not just talking about my hypothermic chills.
The win made the Bruins bowl eligible, but that didn’t even seem that important from my vantage point.
You see, the majority of students have simple tastes. Sure, it’d be nice if UCLA went to Bowl Championship Series bowls every season, but I don’t think it’s necessarily just because that would mean the program is doing well. A consistent winner would mean that every game would feel like Saturday’s, where students stick around despite the conditions because the team is playing well and because it’s fun to be there with your friends and dance around to “Rover” after the game.
The Bruins have reached the much-discussed six-win plateau, and they still have a shot at a spot in the Pac-12 Championship Game. A UCLA win or a Utah loss next weekend would pit the Bruins against most likely Oregon with a spot in the Rose Bowl on the line.
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure which scenario most students would prefer: Another venture to the Rose Bowl for a matchup against someone like Wisconsin, or a potential trip to the Las Vegas Bowl, where UCLA could end up against a team from the Mountain West.
(The chest-painters definitely vote Vegas: it’s a good deal warmer and in that town, where their “outfits” are tame by comparison.)
Obviously, there’s still a lot that has to play out, even with just a couple weeks left to go in the season. But here’s the beauty of college football: Even in the midst of endless talk about the future of the program, about bowl prognostications and postseason scenarios, you can always live in the moment. Sometimes, 45-6 wins over Colorado on a freezing Saturday before Thanksgiving can be celebrated as just that.
It took a visit to the student section to make that all the more clear, and even though I couldn’t feel any of my extremities, I feel like I was able to reach out and feel a bit of a pulse.
It’s pretty simple: Students want to act like students, play Bruin Shuffle and find any excuse to believe their team has a chance at beating USC. Those things exceed the “Passion Bucket.” That’s a treasure chest, the best kind of chest, and it doesn’t have to be bare.
If you know the name of a good personal trainer, email Eshoff at
reshoff@media.ucla.edu.