Great UCLA Read - From their Scout Site Moderator

[Nick Angelich]

UCLA Football Hits New Low, So Why Do We Keep Rooting for It?

ByTRACY PIERSON 7 hours ago

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Joshua Kelley hurdling obstacles (Photo: Steve Cheng, BRO)

 

As you all might be able to surmise, a successful UCLA football team is good for Bruin Report Online. A winning team generates interest, which then generates interest in the site.

So it, really, behooves us to be positive about UCLA football. We’d be absolutely hurting ourselves, and our own product, to not generally be supportive of UCLA football.

But after UCLA lost to Cal and finished the season 4-8, we can’t do it in good conscience.

We’re going to be blunt for you, UCLA fans: this is the vantage point from rock bottom.

This is the worst state the UCLA football program has been in since Bruin Report Online has been in existence – and that’s 20 years. Using our UCLA football memory beyond that, we think we can even say this could be the worse state of the program since, well, we can ever remember.  

It’s the only four-year streak of losing seasons in UCLA football since the university was called the Southern Branch of the University of California and the team’s nickname was the Grizzlies – in the 1920s. It was 1924, so it’s been 95 years, to be exact. UCLA had just become a four-year school, and was still operating on Vermont Avenue, close to Silver Lake. 

Having gone 3-9 and 4-8 in Chip Kelly’s first two seasons, it’s the worst two consecutive UCLA seasons in 55 years, since 1963 and 1964 when UCLA went 2-8 and 4-6 under coach William Barnes (who?).

It’s the worst winning percentage for a coach’s first two years since UCLA has been called UCLA – again, going back to 1924.

We could keep piling on, but you get the idea from the standpoint of win/loss record.

If you’ve gone to the Rose Bowl this fall you undoubtedly have noticed the empty seats. It was the worst season attendance for UCLA football since it moved to the Rose Bowl in 1982, and the worst for season ticket sales. 

UCLA sold just 25,136 season tickets this year. Just to put it into perspective, in Neuheisel’s final year, 2011, UCLA sold 37,767 and, in the year after that, Jim Mora’s first year as UCLA’s head coach, it sold 38,817. In UCLA’s first year in the Rose Bowl it sold 28,008.

It’s the worst year for UCLA season ticket sales in 39 years. 

It got so bad for UCLA trying to fill Rose Bowl seats it was actually giving away free tickets to the Oklahoma game this year.

To, again, put it in perspective, UCLA used to lead the Pac-12 in attendance, and not too long ago. In 2014, UCLA packed in an average of 76,650 to the Rose Bowl per game. This year it averaged 43,848.   

In season ticket sales, that's a difference between 2019 (25,136) and 2014 (47,094) of 21,958. If the average season ticket costs roughly $1,000 (if you figure in the big ticket seats like suites, loge boxes and club seats, and the required donation to the Wooden Fund for the majority of actual season tickets), that’s about $22 million UCLA has lost in season tickets. Throw in about another $6 million it lost in just the drop-off in single game tickets, and UCLA lost approximately $28 million this year in ticket sales compared to 2014.

When you look at it from the standpoint of the feeling around the program and the optimism for the future, again, there isn’t a moment that comes to memory of UCLA football history. When Rick Neuheisel lost to USC, 50-0, in 2011, everyone knew Neuheisel was getting booted – so there was some optimism at the thought of a new coach. In that last season of Neuheisel, by the way, UCLA played in the Pac-12 South Championship Game and a bowl.

This season, too, was worse than last year’s 3-9 season. At the end of 2018, UCLA beat USC and played a good Stanford team competitively. It appeared the program was on the upswing.

This season UCLA ended with a whimper, losing its last three games, getting decimated by USC and then beaten soundly by a bad Cal team.  

Statistically, you could easily make the case that this year’s team was worse than last year’s. This year’s team averages 5.2 yards per play on offense, which gets it ranked 94th in the country. Last year it was 79th nationally, and gained 5.2 yards per play. You didn’t think there was any way UCLA’s defense could get worse from last season, but it has: in 2018 it was 94th nationally, yielding 5.9 yards per play, and then this year it is 115th in the nation, yielding 6.5 yards per play.

This year’s defense is UCLA’s worst in recent memory (if you go by yards allowed/play). The last two years are two of the four worst in the last 18 years.

(Photo: Steve Cheng, BRO)

Just eyeballing the team, without statistics, this is the worst team I can remember these eyes having to tolerate, and the last two years under Chip Kelly UCLA has easily fielded the worst teams in a two-year span.  

Again, to put it in perspective, Karl Dorrell, who was an entirely mediocre coach, went 6-7 and 6-6 in his first two seasons at UCLA, and went to two bowl games. In his third season, he went 10-2. 

Remember not too long ago when winning 8 games was a disappointing season for the UCLA football team? That was as recent as 2015. 

I’m sure I can speak for UCLA fans, but after these two seasons under Chip Kelly, and four consecutive losing seasons, I’m tired of watching bad football. It’s not BBS, as in Battered Bruin Syndrome, anymore. It’s BBFF, as in Bad Bruin Football Fatigue. 

Yeah, we’ve heard the excuses. Kelly has said he has 87 freshmen and sophomores. He needed to rip down the program to the studs to fumigate the culture, and then build it back up from there.

Those excuses simply don’t fly on face value, but even if they did, they can’t counteract BBBF at this point. 

We have repeatedly reported that the UCLA donors who were greatly responsible for footing the bill to afford bringing Chip Kelly to UCLA are pretty forgiving of him. After they were generally understanding of Kelly’s initial 3-9 season, this year the minimum expectation was to get to 6 wins and a bowl game. Not only did Kelly fail to do this, he put a worse team on the field. You just can’t believe that the overly-forgiving donors are willing to figuratively move the goal posts closer for him as a result – again. The fact that Chip Kelly – one of the most revered coaching minds in football – has so vastly under-achieved should only raise the bar of expectation for the 2020 season.

We’ve heard that Kelly has been a bit obstinate about UCLA dictating that he make changes to his coaching staff – namely fire defensive coordinator Jerry Azzinaro (more to come on that story). We can safely say that it’s the only thing that can save Kelly, his staff and the program from an unprecedentedly dark off-season. You think it’s ugly now, if Kelly doesn’t fire Azzinaro and go out and hire an elite defensive coordinator, BBFF will hit new heights (or lows). We think this is rock bottom, but that would absolutely be it.

Here’s one thing to always keep in mind, though, Bruin fans, as we go through this absolutely abysmal era in UCLA football – there are young men who are trying to get through it themselves. They’re working their ass off playing football and going to school. They wake up at 5:00 a.m. during the off-season, go out on Spaulding Field in the chilling rain for an intense workout in which half the team throws up – while keeping up morale after a 3-9 season (and now 4-8), while trying to stay afloat in an elite academic environment. It takes a special inner toughness that many of us would never be able to find. Give it up for UCLA’s graduating seniors who came to UCLA on the promise of playing for a winning program, and will leave the program having played at UCLA during the only span of four losing seasons in 95 years. They are guys like linebacker Josh Woods, who fought through so many season-ending and potentially career-ending injuries. Center Boss Tagaloa, who switched from defensive line to become UCLA’s anchor on its offensive line – a guy who, as a true senior, never experienced a UCLA winning season. Receiver Ethan Fernea, who, being from Texas, came to UCLA as a walk-on and had to maintain a real job for the first three years of playing at UCLA to be able to afford out-of-state tuition – who also never experienced a UCLA winning season.

And there’s running back Joshua Kelley. The former walk-on who also came to UCLA on his own dime after transferring from UC Davis. I remember the first time I saw him, when he came to UCLA’s summer camp in 2017 – again all on his own – to try to impress the UCLA coaches to earn a transfer walk-on spot. Think about the work ethic and dedication that was demanded of Kelley to redshirt his first year, having to prove himself to a new coaching staff when Chip Kelly took over, then earn the starting spot and a scholarship – and become one of UCLA’s best running backs in history. He had another 1,000-yard rushing season this year, even after missing a portion of three games, and finished with 2,567 career yards, which slots him 12th and just ahead of Maurice Jones-Drew on UCLA’s all-time career rushing list. He will always be remembered, at the very least, for his monumental performance against USC last season, when he set a record for the most rushing yards ever in the crosstown rivalry (289). It was fitting that he literally hurdled a tackler against Cal in his last game as a Bruin -- symbolizing his ability to overcome the obstacles life put in front of him. Throughout it all, he did it with undeterred optimism and that indomitable smile. He easily has to be one of the best Bruins in recent history and perhaps all-time, epitomizing the fortitude and underdog spirit that is everything right about sports. 

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COMMENTS

Joshua Kelley, too, never experienced a winning season at UCLA.

Of course, despite the dark era of UCLA football, I know you will all remain fans. You can’t stop. It’s part of your DNA, despite the BBFF. But it’s not just because you’re a sports fan – because if that were the case you would have bailed a long time ago. UCLA is a special place. It represents so much of what is good about society, and rooting for it isn’t just idle fanship, but something that has a higher meaning. Consistent with that, it gives you a chance to root for guys like Josh Woods, Ethan Fernea and Joshua Kelley, that so embody that goodness. That is definitely something deep in our DNA and we just can’t stop.

Nick Angelich

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