When COVID broke out in 2020, many intelligent scientists attempted to determine its origin. Some say it was a wet market in Wuhan, China while others have pointed to a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. While I know what I think, I’m going to leave that discussion for the more conspiracy-minded among us.
I’m more concerned with an affliction which has its origins in the late 20th century. While it’s difficult to know for sure exactly what the origin of this dreaded infection was, I would tend to argue that it began on September 26, 1998. Twenty-eight years ago yesterday.
It took researchers at UCLA 28 long years to finally find a cure.
But, as of yesterday afternoon, I am pleased to officially announced that a cure has been found for one of the worst infections the West Coast has ever seen.
Interestingly, this infection was initially brought to the Southern California by a storm, which made landfall in South Florida about 3,000 miles away from Westwood.
That’s right.
I’m referring to the virus known simply as BBS, or Battered Bruin Syndrome.
Twenty-eight years ago yesterday, UCLA was supposed to play the Miami Hurricanes at the Orange Bowl, but Hurricane Georges forced the schools to postpone the game.
The UCLA Bruins went on to win the first ten games they played that year. In fact, UCLA was the first team to be ranked #1 in the BCS rankings when the first BCS rankings were released on October 26, 1998.
With 1998 being the first season under the new system, no one knew how the rankings would be affected if the schools didn’t reschedule the postponed game. Would a cancelled game keep UCLA from playing for the BCS Championship even though they hadn’t lost a game?
It was possible because the BCS rankings included computer rankings components and a strength of schedule component which was affected by the strength of a team’s schedule. A cancelled game would certainly have affected UCLA’s strength of schedule.
So, UCLA and Miami rescheduled the game for December 5, 1998. Despite this Bruin fans remained confident that Bob Toledo, Cade McNown and the Bruins would win and head to the first BCS National Championship Game at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona.
Then, disaster struck.
The Bruin defense allowed 681 yards to the Hurricanes that afternoon, but the pivotal play came with 3:34 left in the third quarter when McNown found Bruin receiver Brad Melsby over the middle. Melsby was tackled at the Miami 26-yard line. Officials ruled that Melsby had fumbled while he was being tackled. While replays clearly showed that Melsby was down before the ball came out, there was no replay review rule which could have reversed the call on the field. Miami drove down the field and Edgerrin James scored the game-winning touchdown for the Canes.
The loss knocked UCLA out of the BCS title game and into the 1999 Rose Bowl against Wisconsin, which they also lost.
UCLA has not won a conference championship in football since 1998.
After the 2002 football season, new Athletic Director Dan Guerrero fired head coach Bob Toledo after Toledo’s fourth straight loss to Southern Cal.
Guerrero went on to hire Karl Dorrell who lost two of his first three games and went 35-27 over five seasons. As Dorrell began what would become his final season in 2007, Gene Block became UCLA’s new chancellor. During Block’s 17-year tenure, he consistently refused to recognize the importance of athletics as UCLA’s de facto marketing department, and he refused to solve the issues faced by Guerrero and the Bruin football program.
After finally dumping Dorrell, Guerrero then hired Rick Neuheisel, who, after beating Tennessee in overtime at the Rose Bowl, went on to lose the next three games of his first season. Neuheisel went 21-29 in four seasons, while restocking the Bruins with good recruiting that was absent under Dorrell. But Neuheisel chose to redshirt Brett Hundley during Hundley’s first season in Westwood and the quarterback would never play a down for the head coach who recruited him.
Guerrero kept trying. This time, he turned to Jim Mora who won his first three games before dropping two of the next three. Mora had success initially with Neuheisel’s recruits, going 29-11 in his first three seasons in Westwood. But Mora and his staff weren’t good at developing talent and the team was 17-19 in Mora’s final three seasons and he, too, was fired.
Enter UCLA’s best hope in a long time: Charles Edward Kelly aka “Chip”. He was the genius behind Oregon’s success, nevermind the fact that he had failed miserably with both the Eagles and the 49ers. It took this NFL retread six tries before the Bruins could win a game under him. Kelly was fond of saying, “You are what your record says you are.” Well, Kelly’s record says he was a very mediocre head coach. It took a win in the 2023 LA Bowl for Kelly to get to a winning record at UCLA at 35-34 before he bailed to become the offensive coordinator for Ohio State.
During Kelly’s tenure, Guerrero finally retired three months after COVID hit and he was replaced by Martin Jarmond, who had previously served as Boston College’s athletic director. Meanwhile, with Guerrero and Jarmond unable to fix Bruin football, combined with COVID-19, massive holes were blown into the athletic department budget. In an attempt to fix that, Jarmond convinced Block that UCLA should join USC in moving to the Big Ten Conference in order to improve the department finances.
Meanwhile, Kelly kept fielding mediocre teams and attendance continued dropping. Jarmond couldn’t even find the money needed to fire Kelly. Instead, he had to wait Kelly out until after the 2023 Coaching Carousel was at an end.
Jarmond brought back legendary Bruin running back and former running backs coach DeShaun Foster, who had recently left for the same role with the Las Vegas Raiders, as Kelly’s replacement. Following a disastrous press conference at Big Ten Football Media Days, Foster went 5-7 in his first season.
After Foster’s first season, Julio Frenk became Block’s replacement. While originally from Mexico where he served as Minister of Health, Chancellor Frenk learned to love American football as the president of, ironically, the University of Miami.
Presumably with Frenk’s blessing, Jarmond fired Foster after an 0-3 start last season. UCLA established a search committee for a new head coach which excluded Jarmond.
That committee landed Bob Chesney as UCLA’s new head football coach who, after yesterday’s trouncing of Maryland became just UCLA’s second head coach to start his tenure with four wins. The other, of course, was Red Sanders, the architect of UCLA’s only football national championship, UCLA’s powderkeg blue uniforms and the famous UCLA stripe on the Bruins’ uniforms.
Of course, Jarmond was fired right before the start of football season this year, replaced by Tim Harris.
The combination of Frenk, Chesney and Harris means UCLA has finally found its cure for Battered Bruin Syndrome, the result of 28 years of Bruin fans thinking the football program was on the verge of glory only to have it pulled away as quickly as Lucy pulls the ball away from a running Charlie Brown.
Yesterday, UCLA won a conference game by the biggest margin since Sanders’ 1955 Bruins defeated Washington State by 55 points the week after they lost to Maryland on the road.
It took the president of Miami to help cure the disease that began when the Canes postponed and rescheduled that 1998 game against the Hurricanes.
And, Bob Chesney has proven BBS is cured with a 51-point win over the school who beat Red Sanders back in 1955.
It’s a great day to be alive and be a Bruin, my friends!
As usual, we have yesterday’s UCLA postgame press conferences, courtesy of UCLA Athletics. First up is Bruin head coach Bob Chesney.
UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava and linebacker Sammy Omosigho were the players who met with the media after the game.
Go Bruins!!!
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I was at the Orange Bowl in December ‘98. I drove down from Orlando with a pretty female Miami grad and sat in the Miami section in my Bruin blue garb. Boy did I get a lot of shit the last ten minutes but it was not malicious as I was not an a-hole when we were dominating. The Orange Bowl is the epicenter of Battered Bruin Syndrome. Ground zero if you will. The should have put up a memorial for Melsby at the site after it was torn down. (Impossible to tell if it was a fumble from my seat). After the game I kicked what I thought was an empty beer can in the parking lot. It was not empty and took off like a missile and struck a large male Miami fan in the numbers of his jersey. Almost got my rear kicked but was able to diffuse the situation. Later that night, we saw a bootleg screening of The Phantom Menace trailer at a bar called The Chili Pepper in Coconut Grove. They stopped the music and told us we were in for a “surprise.” When they revealed the surprise, the entire bar erupted. The trailer was the only positive of the weekend.
It looks like UCLA Pick Sixes are getting even more contagious. Former Bruin linebacker Kain Medrano just took a Sam Darnold pass to the house for a touchdown! Go Bruins!