Wow! Great commentary Joe, connecting the dots......and ironies.....from the time frames between '98 up to the dominating win yesterday......a Jim Murry-esque quality article if I've ever seen one...
Agreed T........this was the highest compliment I could think of.......and Joe deserves it for this "story" because, as you know, that's what JM did, he wrote sports stories.......he did not give sports reports.....Joe referenced BBS through decades of leadership—from administrative indifference and "NFL coaching retreads"—painting a multi-generational portrait of a program's psychology, pointing out the cosmic irony of both the disease and the cure arising out of Miami, rather than just reviewing yesterday's box score. So, with a total, sweeping, historical football arc, he has expressed a beautiful, agonizing melodrama. And I say beautiful, because the story's arc, thanks to Frenk, Chesney and our new AD Harris, is finally reaching its happy ending....And again, my compliments to Joe for telling the story so well....
As the founder and head of DumpDorrell.com, I feel I have some credibility to say this summary is probably the best summary of UCLA Football produced since I was in Westwood in the late 80s. Well done Joe and keep rollin'.
By the way, was it you Joe that started a podcast about UCLA football around 2006/2007 and asked me to join you? We did maybe a few podcasts if I remember correctly then it just sort of fizzled. If it was you, boy did we miss a massive opportunity so early on if we had stuck with it.
Tough to watch games now that I have been living in N. Europe for the last almost 20 years. But its fun to check in. This year does seem different. It's way too soon obviously but I'm starting to get the same feeling that I got in '95. Talkin hoops. But yeah, I will never forget that Miami game. That was where this all started, exactly. Thanks Joe for all you do!
I never started a UCLA football podcast, but I was a frequent contributor to DumpDorrell.com. It was your efforts that are at least partially responsible for the creation of TheMightyBruin.com!
Like many others, when DD shut down, I moved over to BruinsNation.com. Eventually, Greg Burcham and I took over BN from Nestor, and when SB Nation terminated our contracts due to California Assembly Bill 5 in 2020, TMB was born.
So, the reality is that there may not be a TMB without DD! Thank you for giving frustrated Bruin fans that forum so many years ago!
Hopefully, it may be a little easier to watch from Europe now with every game being streamed. At the very least, a Big Ten Plus subscription should allow streaming a game, even if it's already over.
A painful history of UCLA football for sure, so hope we are now seeing the ascendancy of the football program under Coach Chesney. Agree, it’s a great time to be a Bruins fan and looking forward to more success in the future.
As much as I loved Terry Donahue, he never fully embraced winning a national chamopinship. It always felt that beating suc and playing in the Rose Bowl on New Year's day was enough. He was successful in both, but in Coach Ches, I see something entirely different, and it's Woodenesque, IMHO.
Love this story, Joe. I remember the Miami fiasco well, and you are so right: BBS was born in '98 and BBS may just find it's rightful resting place this season.
Tamara, you are absolutely correct about Terry Donahue.
I will never forget picking up one of my first copies of the Daily Bruin back in 1989 when I was a freshman. I had played high school football at St. Joseph Regional in Montvale, NJ and we won the school's first two state championships when I was a junior and a senior. Winning the state championship was always our goal.
As I read the football article in the DB that September day, it quoted TD as saying something along the lines of "Hopefully, we'll play well enough this year to win the Pac-10 and make it to the Rose Bowl."
All I could think of is, "What a load of crap! We're UCLA! We should be competing for the national championship! Because if the national championship is the goal, the Pac-10 and the Rose Bowl will take care of themselves."
One of the things I love about CBC is that he refuses to limit this team! To be sure, while he hasn't publicly said the goal is to win a natty, he is still challenging his players to continuously improve and become the best they are capable of becoming.
I set my expectations for this season modestly at 6-6. All I wanted to see was bowl eligibility. Anything else is gravy.
Four games in, we're two-thirds of the way to my modest goal. I'm hoping to raise my expectations following the Oregon and Wisconsin games.
I don't believe Coach Wooden ever mentioned a goal of winning a natty either. CBC is the modern day Wooden, same foundational principles, while managing NIL and the portal. 💙💛💙💛
I am hopeful against both Oregon and Wisconsin 🙏💙💛💙💛
Actually, he strongly inferred it. We had two of his team in my fraternity and they and I were constantly talking about goal orienting and similar. But the point was that, once the first NCAA title was won in 1964, it all fit into the pattern of his pyramid and coaching ethos!
Interesting to note that, after the Houston loss in the Astrodome, 20 January 1968, my two brothers went silent as the tomb (and as grim) and would not discuss anything with the rest of the guys, They were determined, as we later found out, on achieving not only that year's title but also revenge on Houston. Which, of course, they did at the semi-final game of the 1968 NCAA tournament.
War, you are my history guru. I would have loved to walk in your shoes back in the days of JRW.
The best I can do was the time I met Coach and shook his hand He signed my basketball at an event after we won the Natty in 1995. Harrick signed it too.
I still have that ball, deflated a bit after all these years, but Coach's signature still bright as ever. What a gentleman he was. God bless that remarkable man 💙💛💙💛
In the Coach Wooden display case at Pauley, one of the pieces is a sheet with a list of what Coach deemed the 10 most memorable games of his career with a sentence about each - except for the entry for the 1968 semi-final which is one word: Redemption.
I hear you NVE......SC was a 3.5 underdog before kickoff this past Satruday.......Good, the current spread for the Bruins v Oregon means the betting public does not think the Bruins can play with Oregon......I hope the Oregon players think that too..... ...there are a lot of objective reasons why the bettors think this......for one, Oregon has the best athletes.......There was this guy, Bud Eliot, who used to publish the BCR (blue chip ratio) rating every year prior to the season......the premise was that if you didn't have higher than a 50% BCR (4-star and 5-star athletes on your team), you had no shot at winning a National Championship. This limited the field of "contenders" to about 10 to 15 teams every year. Of course, Cignetti and the Hoosiers completely shattered the Blue-Chip Ratio model last year by going 16-0 with a BCR of 8%.....So it seems "coaching" and "team psychology" have a little bit more to do with building a "championship-caliber team" on the college level than was previously thought.....I like what Chesney has built and continues to build in regard to our team's "psychology/mental state." I think we will have something for Oregon next Saturday.....
It would appear that Coach Chesney motivated the team! The next game is going to be a real challenge, but they should go in with a lot of energy and pride. A great start!
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!
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.
I also flew to the west coast for the next game, the Rose Bowl. Where Ron Dayne ran all over us. What I am saying is, I’m sorry Bruin fans, it’s my fault.
When you mentioned the trailer for The Phantom Menace, it reminded me how we actually went to see the trailer when it debuted in front of The Waterboy.
I can't help but chuckle at the thought that the movie about Bobby Boucher came out week's before we began 28 years of sucking again!
A great Pulitzer Prize-worthy story of BBS, in my opinion. I'm hoping that the frustrating decades of incompetence, apathy, mediocrity, Blockhead, the "two Guerreros", NFL retreads, inexperienced/unqualified new-hires, "Punting is Winning" mindset, etc., become a very distant and forgettable memory for UCLA football.
Go Bruins!
P.S.--The wooden horse is still standing by for the Rose Bowl tarps to be burned so it can deliver its ashes to the Mausoleum.
I have never read finer in the annals of TMB nor it's predecessors --"Dump Dorrell" (as I remember) and "Bruins Nation" -- as this piece by Joseph! Well written (decidedly so), precise, detailed, and extremely satisfying to this old alum. I am quite serious. This is a manifestly stirring and emotional narration of UCLA football's almost three decades wandering in the desert.
I do not know whether we're back or not but I do know that all the pieces and players are in place to make it happen. The bumps in the road back will not seem so jarring with Chancellor Frenk, AD CEO Harris, and Coach Chesney in place!
We are grateful to you, Joe, for your efforts, and to Dimitri as well...
...and a warm thanks to all the Bruins and Bruin fans who have been so devoted to UCLA's athletics so faithfully!
What the Hurricanes taketh, they giveth back to UCLA in the form of an engaged Chancellor, but what would be really ironic is the two teams facing each other in the CFP for the opportunity to deliver some long overdue BBS redemption.
Nice B4E.....that would be the ultimate, ironic end to Joe's beautiful story arc........but only if we won..........a controversial play/call or two going our way (karma) wouldn't hurt either.....
Joe, Battered Bruin Syndrome is the most accurate diagnosis this program has ever gotten. I have lived all 28 years of it. December 5, 1998 — McNown hits Melsby, the officials call a fumble that was not a fumble, no replay to save him, Edgerrin James walks it in, and the BCS title game goes to someone else. That is the wound everything else got infected from. Toledo, Dorrell, Neuheisel, Mora, the Chip Kelly years where he told us we are what our record says we are and the record said mediocre. Chesney is the second coach in school history to start 4-0, the other one being Red Sanders, and now the president of Miami gets to sign the cure for the disease Miami started. I am not declaring anything cured until Eugene on the 10th. But 54-3 is what a cure looks like in the early trials.
Even the greatest team in the history of sports, the New York Yankees, don't win every game.
LA fans can argue that the Dodgers are better than the Yanks, and lately, they have been, but few can argue the Yankees are the most storied franchise in sports history.
Even if you do disagree, look at the team you think is the most successful. Do they win all the time? Of course, the answer is no. Not the Patriots, the Lakers, the Canadiens, or Bama.
The point is that the fans of all those teams always count on them to have a commitment to winning.
We may not beat Oregon on Oct. 10, but UCLA has finally made the commitment to winning.
H/t to AD Tim Harris for pointing this out in his conversation with Dave Woods and Travy Pierson a few weeks ago.
John Wooden never spoke about wins and losses. He knew that his teams would lose once in a while. It was about making the commitment to becoming the best you are capable.of becoming. Or, as Lombardi said, "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence."
Nick, a three-headed monster is great until there are only twenty carries to split and nobody finds a rhythm. Knight is running at 9.1 a pop, and the only thing that can slow him down is a committee pulling him off the field to be fair. Oregon in Eugene is the exam. Autzen does not care about your depth chart. If the rotation works on the 10th, I will eat these words. Feed the hot hand. Go Bruins.
If anything could be considered cured, then I think it would be the prolonged, seasonal bout of mediocrity that has finally been replaced by the concerted, deliberate efforts to become a highly competitive football program. Also interesting to learn that the original form of Vince Lombardi's most famous quote, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing", actually came from UCLA's Red Sanders. So, the most effective treatment for BBS has been awaiting its rediscovery all this time...
Below are some links to recent interviews with the football team. Is there a better way to share these? I remember the old Bruins Nation had Fanposts, I think daily news updates too.
Did anyone catch Dan Lanning’s interviews yesterday? He compared UCLA to last years Indiana team which is probably a big stretch. But he was also very complimentary of Bob Chesney, saying that he offered to check in on Dante Moore and help out in any way he can. Makes me feel proud to have Chesney as a coach!
That's a lot more class and integrity coming from an opposing HC than the one that Oregon defeated last weekend. Hope the Huskies can make it an entertaining game this weekend.
It’s a great day to be alive and be a Bruin! 💙💛
Wow! Great commentary Joe, connecting the dots......and ironies.....from the time frames between '98 up to the dominating win yesterday......a Jim Murry-esque quality article if I've ever seen one...
Oh my, Jim Murray, he was a legend. No one at the Times has equaled him since.
Agreed T........this was the highest compliment I could think of.......and Joe deserves it for this "story" because, as you know, that's what JM did, he wrote sports stories.......he did not give sports reports.....Joe referenced BBS through decades of leadership—from administrative indifference and "NFL coaching retreads"—painting a multi-generational portrait of a program's psychology, pointing out the cosmic irony of both the disease and the cure arising out of Miami, rather than just reviewing yesterday's box score. So, with a total, sweeping, historical football arc, he has expressed a beautiful, agonizing melodrama. And I say beautiful, because the story's arc, thanks to Frenk, Chesney and our new AD Harris, is finally reaching its happy ending....And again, my compliments to Joe for telling the story so well....
Perfectly said, my friend 💙💛💙💛
Thanks T for the kind words.....
As the founder and head of DumpDorrell.com, I feel I have some credibility to say this summary is probably the best summary of UCLA Football produced since I was in Westwood in the late 80s. Well done Joe and keep rollin'.
By the way, was it you Joe that started a podcast about UCLA football around 2006/2007 and asked me to join you? We did maybe a few podcasts if I remember correctly then it just sort of fizzled. If it was you, boy did we miss a massive opportunity so early on if we had stuck with it.
Tough to watch games now that I have been living in N. Europe for the last almost 20 years. But its fun to check in. This year does seem different. It's way too soon obviously but I'm starting to get the same feeling that I got in '95. Talkin hoops. But yeah, I will never forget that Miami game. That was where this all started, exactly. Thanks Joe for all you do!
Go Bruins!!
JJ, all I can say is WOW!
I never started a UCLA football podcast, but I was a frequent contributor to DumpDorrell.com. It was your efforts that are at least partially responsible for the creation of TheMightyBruin.com!
Like many others, when DD shut down, I moved over to BruinsNation.com. Eventually, Greg Burcham and I took over BN from Nestor, and when SB Nation terminated our contracts due to California Assembly Bill 5 in 2020, TMB was born.
So, the reality is that there may not be a TMB without DD! Thank you for giving frustrated Bruin fans that forum so many years ago!
Hopefully, it may be a little easier to watch from Europe now with every game being streamed. At the very least, a Big Ten Plus subscription should allow streaming a game, even if it's already over.
Dug through my old links and found the Bruins Nation podcast. Does the name Kevin Brown sound familiar?
A painful history of UCLA football for sure, so hope we are now seeing the ascendancy of the football program under Coach Chesney. Agree, it’s a great time to be a Bruins fan and looking forward to more success in the future.
To quote Gerald Ford "our long national nightmare is over"!!! 4's UP!
As much as I loved Terry Donahue, he never fully embraced winning a national chamopinship. It always felt that beating suc and playing in the Rose Bowl on New Year's day was enough. He was successful in both, but in Coach Ches, I see something entirely different, and it's Woodenesque, IMHO.
Love this story, Joe. I remember the Miami fiasco well, and you are so right: BBS was born in '98 and BBS may just find it's rightful resting place this season.
Go Bruins!!! 💙💛💙💛
Tamara, you are absolutely correct about Terry Donahue.
I will never forget picking up one of my first copies of the Daily Bruin back in 1989 when I was a freshman. I had played high school football at St. Joseph Regional in Montvale, NJ and we won the school's first two state championships when I was a junior and a senior. Winning the state championship was always our goal.
As I read the football article in the DB that September day, it quoted TD as saying something along the lines of "Hopefully, we'll play well enough this year to win the Pac-10 and make it to the Rose Bowl."
All I could think of is, "What a load of crap! We're UCLA! We should be competing for the national championship! Because if the national championship is the goal, the Pac-10 and the Rose Bowl will take care of themselves."
TD's statement unnecessarily limited UCLA's upside.
One of the things I love about CBC is that he refuses to limit this team! To be sure, while he hasn't publicly said the goal is to win a natty, he is still challenging his players to continuously improve and become the best they are capable of becoming.
I set my expectations for this season modestly at 6-6. All I wanted to see was bowl eligibility. Anything else is gravy.
Four games in, we're two-thirds of the way to my modest goal. I'm hoping to raise my expectations following the Oregon and Wisconsin games.
I don't believe Coach Wooden ever mentioned a goal of winning a natty either. CBC is the modern day Wooden, same foundational principles, while managing NIL and the portal. 💙💛💙💛
I am hopeful against both Oregon and Wisconsin 🙏💙💛💙💛
Actually, he strongly inferred it. We had two of his team in my fraternity and they and I were constantly talking about goal orienting and similar. But the point was that, once the first NCAA title was won in 1964, it all fit into the pattern of his pyramid and coaching ethos!
Interesting to note that, after the Houston loss in the Astrodome, 20 January 1968, my two brothers went silent as the tomb (and as grim) and would not discuss anything with the rest of the guys, They were determined, as we later found out, on achieving not only that year's title but also revenge on Houston. Which, of course, they did at the semi-final game of the 1968 NCAA tournament.
War, you are my history guru. I would have loved to walk in your shoes back in the days of JRW.
The best I can do was the time I met Coach and shook his hand He signed my basketball at an event after we won the Natty in 1995. Harrick signed it too.
I still have that ball, deflated a bit after all these years, but Coach's signature still bright as ever. What a gentleman he was. God bless that remarkable man 💙💛💙💛
In the Coach Wooden display case at Pauley, one of the pieces is a sheet with a list of what Coach deemed the 10 most memorable games of his career with a sentence about each - except for the entry for the 1968 semi-final which is one word: Redemption.
What memories, my dear War.
I wonder if Fred's broadcast for that game can be found in an archive somewhere. What a find that would be.
Dean's Houston reminds me of simpler times or perhaps simpler on their surface, but what rhythm he carried!
Houston mascot falling asleep is quite astonishing 🤣
We will have much to muse about come basketball season, with crusty Cronin and all.
Much love 💙💛💙💛
If it's Dylan Raiola, 12.5 underdogs is too high. Bruins are playing damn good ball on both sides to be 12 1/2 dogs.
I hear you NVE......SC was a 3.5 underdog before kickoff this past Satruday.......Good, the current spread for the Bruins v Oregon means the betting public does not think the Bruins can play with Oregon......I hope the Oregon players think that too..... ...there are a lot of objective reasons why the bettors think this......for one, Oregon has the best athletes.......There was this guy, Bud Eliot, who used to publish the BCR (blue chip ratio) rating every year prior to the season......the premise was that if you didn't have higher than a 50% BCR (4-star and 5-star athletes on your team), you had no shot at winning a National Championship. This limited the field of "contenders" to about 10 to 15 teams every year. Of course, Cignetti and the Hoosiers completely shattered the Blue-Chip Ratio model last year by going 16-0 with a BCR of 8%.....So it seems "coaching" and "team psychology" have a little bit more to do with building a "championship-caliber team" on the college level than was previously thought.....I like what Chesney has built and continues to build in regard to our team's "psychology/mental state." I think we will have something for Oregon next Saturday.....
It would appear that Coach Chesney motivated the team! The next game is going to be a real challenge, but they should go in with a lot of energy and pride. A great start!
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!
And against a former Trojan too!
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.
I also flew to the west coast for the next game, the Rose Bowl. Where Ron Dayne ran all over us. What I am saying is, I’m sorry Bruin fans, it’s my fault.
You failed to tell us whatever happened to that Miami grad you went with!
We’ll keep that part private.
Hahaha!
Silver lining - you did sit with a pretty female.
Love the user name, BTW.
Nick the Quick was the man :)
When you mentioned the trailer for The Phantom Menace, it reminded me how we actually went to see the trailer when it debuted in front of The Waterboy.
I can't help but chuckle at the thought that the movie about Bobby Boucher came out week's before we began 28 years of sucking again!
A great Pulitzer Prize-worthy story of BBS, in my opinion. I'm hoping that the frustrating decades of incompetence, apathy, mediocrity, Blockhead, the "two Guerreros", NFL retreads, inexperienced/unqualified new-hires, "Punting is Winning" mindset, etc., become a very distant and forgettable memory for UCLA football.
Go Bruins!
P.S.--The wooden horse is still standing by for the Rose Bowl tarps to be burned so it can deliver its ashes to the Mausoleum.
I have never read finer in the annals of TMB nor it's predecessors --"Dump Dorrell" (as I remember) and "Bruins Nation" -- as this piece by Joseph! Well written (decidedly so), precise, detailed, and extremely satisfying to this old alum. I am quite serious. This is a manifestly stirring and emotional narration of UCLA football's almost three decades wandering in the desert.
I do not know whether we're back or not but I do know that all the pieces and players are in place to make it happen. The bumps in the road back will not seem so jarring with Chancellor Frenk, AD CEO Harris, and Coach Chesney in place!
We are grateful to you, Joe, for your efforts, and to Dimitri as well...
...and a warm thanks to all the Bruins and Bruin fans who have been so devoted to UCLA's athletics so faithfully!
Chesney, Harris, and Frenk to every God damn naysayer of what UCLA football could be the last 28 years:
https://youtu.be/mZkJAx8FycI?is=NBhWLGfoovA1-ufo
GO AHEAD, CHARLIE!
So the University of Miami is the Alpha and the Omega of BBS. Weird.
What the Hurricanes taketh, they giveth back to UCLA in the form of an engaged Chancellor, but what would be really ironic is the two teams facing each other in the CFP for the opportunity to deliver some long overdue BBS redemption.
Nice B4E.....that would be the ultimate, ironic end to Joe's beautiful story arc........but only if we won..........a controversial play/call or two going our way (karma) wouldn't hurt either.....
Call it the Frenk Bowl!
Joe, Battered Bruin Syndrome is the most accurate diagnosis this program has ever gotten. I have lived all 28 years of it. December 5, 1998 — McNown hits Melsby, the officials call a fumble that was not a fumble, no replay to save him, Edgerrin James walks it in, and the BCS title game goes to someone else. That is the wound everything else got infected from. Toledo, Dorrell, Neuheisel, Mora, the Chip Kelly years where he told us we are what our record says we are and the record said mediocre. Chesney is the second coach in school history to start 4-0, the other one being Red Sanders, and now the president of Miami gets to sign the cure for the disease Miami started. I am not declaring anything cured until Eugene on the 10th. But 54-3 is what a cure looks like in the early trials.
I am willing to say we found a vaccination, but 100% effectiveness is to be determined.
Even the greatest team in the history of sports, the New York Yankees, don't win every game.
LA fans can argue that the Dodgers are better than the Yanks, and lately, they have been, but few can argue the Yankees are the most storied franchise in sports history.
Even if you do disagree, look at the team you think is the most successful. Do they win all the time? Of course, the answer is no. Not the Patriots, the Lakers, the Canadiens, or Bama.
The point is that the fans of all those teams always count on them to have a commitment to winning.
We may not beat Oregon on Oct. 10, but UCLA has finally made the commitment to winning.
H/t to AD Tim Harris for pointing this out in his conversation with Dave Woods and Travy Pierson a few weeks ago.
John Wooden never spoke about wins and losses. He knew that his teams would lose once in a while. It was about making the commitment to becoming the best you are capable.of becoming. Or, as Lombardi said, "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence."
Don't make the Perfect the enemy of the good.
With the 3 headed monster at running back, i think we can definitely win at Eugene.
Nick, a three-headed monster is great until there are only twenty carries to split and nobody finds a rhythm. Knight is running at 9.1 a pop, and the only thing that can slow him down is a committee pulling him off the field to be fair. Oregon in Eugene is the exam. Autzen does not care about your depth chart. If the rotation works on the 10th, I will eat these words. Feed the hot hand. Go Bruins.
If anything could be considered cured, then I think it would be the prolonged, seasonal bout of mediocrity that has finally been replaced by the concerted, deliberate efforts to become a highly competitive football program. Also interesting to learn that the original form of Vince Lombardi's most famous quote, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing", actually came from UCLA's Red Sanders. So, the most effective treatment for BBS has been awaiting its rediscovery all this time...
Below are some links to recent interviews with the football team. Is there a better way to share these? I remember the old Bruins Nation had Fanposts, I think daily news updates too.
Yogi Roth with Coach Chesney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EFwAu5CG6s
Bruin Report Online with Ta'Shawn James: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inPHuO6nRGY
Bruin Report Online with DJ Barksdale (thought he went by Derrick now?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kcb8ayIYGk
Private Wealth Podcast with Sam Yoon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DSWJutbJUc
And as good as place as any to include this hype video, UCLA Football Forever (narrated by Rafer Johnson, RIP): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rohKZYXUmQ
Did anyone catch Dan Lanning’s interviews yesterday? He compared UCLA to last years Indiana team which is probably a big stretch. But he was also very complimentary of Bob Chesney, saying that he offered to check in on Dante Moore and help out in any way he can. Makes me feel proud to have Chesney as a coach!
Chesney is just a likable dude. Anyone that hates Ches probably sucks.
That's a lot more class and integrity coming from an opposing HC than the one that Oregon defeated last weekend. Hope the Huskies can make it an entertaining game this weekend.