A few days ago, a friend of mine pitched me an idea for a column.
“Write about how you can always count on Jeff Tedford to blow one game he should win every year, but since Cal already gave one away to Oregon State, we’re going to get killed on Saturday,” he said.
I didn’t really like that suggestion, for obvious reasons. But I couldn’t help wondering: What does it say about our football program when a proposal like that isn’t completely unreasonable?
First, I had to do some research.
Last year, including their bowl game, Cal finished 10-3. Two of those losses were on the road against Tennessee and USC ““ no shame in that. The third loss? When the No. 8 Bears went to Tucson to play Arizona. Hey, having been here in 2005, I know that sometimes Universities of California lose on the road to the Wildcats. These things happen; no one protects his house like Willie Tuitama, so let’s not play the blame game. But I guess that still qualifies as blowing a game you should win.
So let’s go to 2005. Cal went 8-4, losing to USC, Oregon and us, in a game I remember best for watching it on TV while simultaneously praying that: a) we’d win and b) our fans wouldn’t rush the field, because I had a ticket and would never have been able to forgive myself for missing out on a chance to run wild in the Rose Bowl. Of course, after last year’s USC game, I now know that, after a big win, we at UCLA don’t get to “rush the field” so much as we get to “get pepper sprayed in the face” by trigger-happy Rose Bowl security and Pasadena police.
That’s another column entirely, but all three of those losses are understandable. However, the Bears’ fourth loss was at home to those pesky Oregon State Beavers again. That’s two, Tedford.
The year before that, the only regular season game Cal lost was to No. 1 USC at the Coliseum. But then they lost to Texas Tech in the Holiday Bowl to finish 10-2. Bowl games often make for weird results, but still. That makes three seasons in a row of at least one boneheaded upset loss for our UC neighbors to the north.
So that part of the idea checks out: Just like Lindsay Lohan, Tedford and Co. have occasionally been known to mess things up when they get into the driver’s seat.
Which brings us to the more troubling question: Has UCLA football really fallen so far that a trip to the Rose Bowl now qualifies as a game Cal “should win”? Cal, as in UC Berkeley? A school known better for its hippies, panhandlers and exceptional physics program?
I admit, our football team hasn’t exactly lived up to its own expectations this season. Six games into the season we already have two upset losses of our own, each one equal parts perplexing and depressing. Our quarterback depth chart prominently contains the words “walk-on,” “redshirt” and “former receiver.” Even worse, we’ve lost at the Rose Bowl, which used to be a safe haven from whatever struggles our team was having on the road.
But it’s a long season, right? As embarrassing as losing to Utah and Notre Dame was, both games were nonconference. And it’s a crazy, upset-filled college football season, right? Utah and Notre Dame have both gone to BCS games in the past few seasons, and even if they’ve since lost their coach or otherwise fallen on hard times, that’s still more than you can say for Appalachian State or Stanford. We’re undefeated in the Pac-10, and if we win out, we’ll still be headed to a BCS game in our home stadium. So what if playing in the Rose Bowl doesn’t seem like quite as sure a thing as it did two weeks ago?
Look, maybe I’m biased, but I’m not ready to write our guys off as plucky underdogs who’ll need the other team to slip up to spring an upset. We still have all those seniors and all that experience, and I’m banking that, after two bad losses, the team’s tired of hearing questions about their underachievement and how long their coach is going to have a job. Call me a homer, but if we win this game, I’m guessing it’s because of Bruin pride and not Jeff Tedford’s history of losing games in which his team is favored.
I mean, look at his track record. Some people just can’t be depended upon.
E-mail Lampros at nlampros@media.ucla.edu if you’d like to go back in time to pitch him a better column idea.