UCLA promoted Saturday’s 28-10 home-opening victory against San Diego State like a friend’s band does a local show — by telling all his friends to tell all their friends to come.
By buying up tickets — 300 by UCLA CEO of Athletics Tim Harris and 300 more by the Champion of Westwood NIL collective — to distribute to fans.
By having its frontman — new head coach Bob Chesney — personally invite people to the Rose Bowl: “I told you it would be different on our side; we need it to be different on their side as well.”
By getting everyone excited, in the aftermath of last weekend’s thrilling season-opening win at Cal, about the new tune they’re singing. By building anticipation, getting the hopes up of people like El Monte’s Aaron Flores, a lifelong UCLA fan, who will tell you he’s ready for some winning after seasons of suffering from “Battered Bruin Syndrome.”
Flores and his family were among the 31,973 fans who showed up on a toasty Saturday afternoon, a bit better than the 27,785 who attended last season’s home opener in the 89,702-seat Rose Bowl stadium against Utah, the first loss in a disastrous 3-9 season.
Spencer Schoenbaum was there celebrating his 29th birthday with friends — all of them wearing Bruin polo shirts and khaki shorts, as a nod to Aztec coach Sean Lewis’ statement about UCLA’s purported preppy fashion. He was back for the first time in years, he said, brought back by the promise of what the Bruins could do in their Chesney era.
“I’m just excited that we’re all excited again,” Schoenbaum said. “My family and I have been coming to the Rose Bowl since I was 2 years old, but we took a few years off; there were a few years of indifference. But now all my friends and I are back and tailgating, and we just want to be excited.”
But if these people were excited to see the second coming of Guns N’ Roses, in the first half, they got a Nickelback cover band instead.
Or if they’d been hoping to see more competent football from their football team, they instead found themselves watching impressively inept football, with neither team scoring during the first half.
The last time UCLA had a halftime score of 0-0 was in November 1993, in a loss to Arizona State. And the last time San Diego State beat a Big Ten team? Also 1993, when the Aztecs defeated Minnesota.
But those echoes faded fast after halftime, when Chesney encouraged his team to “keep going,” said linebacker Jalen Woods, whose heads-up, fourth-quarter interception set up Jaivian Thomas’ 1-yard touchdown run that extended UCLA’s lead to 21-3.
“Like, ‘don’t lose the fight,’” Woods said Chesney told the team. “We know the offense is going to kick it into gear, eventually. And we just know if we do our job, everything is gonna be right. So we just gotta keep playing, keep having energy on the sideline. Just keep pushing, because we know eventually, we’re gonna break through.”
That’s the idea — both in Saturday’s victory and in the big picture.
That’s the resolve that has Chesney’s team outscoring opponents 42-10 in fourth quarters so far this season. That’s what has them 2-0 and twice celebrating by going to sing the fight song with the Bruin band in high spirits. It’s what has the Bruins winning games that, in recent seasons, they would have lost.
“It wasn’t pretty, but it was gritty,” Chesney said Saturday, dropping bars.
After they trained the spotlight on James Madison transfer Wayne Knight, it was both.
The senior running back and veritable rock star shredded the San Diego State defense with three touchdown runs of 8, 7 and 36 yards. That brings his season TD total to six. In two games. That’s something only Zach Charbonnet (2022) and DeShaun Foster (2001) have done — and Knight has played only two games as a Bruin.
His six rushing touchdowns is also two fewer than the Bruins had as a team all last season.
“It’s good to play in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena,” said Knight, who finished with 97 yards in 13 carries. “Seeing those guys come out there, supporting us, it’s important. And that’s going to continue to grow. By the end of the year, we’re gonna have that thing packed up.”
The people want to pack it, said Costa Mesa’s Travis Fuller, another lifelong Bruin fan.
“UCLA has a significant alumni base, and I think if momentum builds around the program, people will return to the Rose Bowl,” Fuller said. “During the Mora years, we averaged around 70,000 a game. I think that can easily return in spite of the presence of the NFL.”
It will help, having a team to cheer for that won’t go quietly.
“It wasn’t pretty in the first half, I understand,” Chesney said, a bit apologetically, when asked about Saturday’s crowd. “But at the same point in time, we need them, and I’m glad they showed up.”
The post UCLA isn’t perfect, but fans can trust Bob Chesney’s Bruins to fight for wins appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
