PASADENA, Calif. -- Two weeks ago I was sitting with a couple of writers from Alabama, having a pregame meal inside Bryant-Denny Stadium. We were chatting about everything, from Nick Saban to Crimson Tide fans. Then at some point I was asked where my future football ventures would take me, and I told then I'd be at Auburn-Florida the subsequent week and then off to the West Coast for Notre Dame-UCLA.
|
|
| USC loses, but Ben Olson and UCLA miss a chance to be the toast of Los Angeles. (US Presswire) |
My rationale for watching two unranked teams was that Notre Dame football is so legendary that the Irish being winless is just as big a story as if they were undefeated. In many ways, I suggested, the Irish remained intriguing for the same reasons millions of people tuned in to see Britney Spears on the MTV Video Music Awards. Watching an entity that was once on top of the world (like Notre Dame and Spears) famously struggle (like Notre Dame and Spears) is something normal people enjoy and can't help but to monitor.
My bottom line: Notre Dame is Britney Spears.
"Yeah," said the Tuscaloosa News' Cecil Hurt. "But I bet Britney scores more."
Rimshot!
(Badump-bump)
And so it was with that train-wreck appeal that I found myself at the Rose Bowl Saturday, on the second level of the press box, window open, cool California breeze in my face. The plan was to watch Notre Dame lose again, write about it, throw in a Kevin Federline reference somewhere and call it a night. But in my infinite wisdom I somehow underestimated the Karl Dorrell factor, and boy did that come back to bite me in the you-know-what.
"There is some joy in that locker room," Charlie Weis said following Notre Dame's 20-6 victory over UCLA that pushed the Irish to 1-5. "It's been a long time since they've been able to sing the fight song."
So in that regard, it was a huge win for the Irish. But I wouldn't get too excited because in the end it was just a victory over an underachieving UCLA team coached by an always scrutinized Dorrell, otherwise known as Public Enemy No. 1 for UCLA football fans, the object of so much vitriol that it's difficult to imagine him surviving this debacle and living to see 2008.
Sure, he's 4-2 this season, and on the surface that might look OK. But the four wins are unimpressive and the two losses are embarrassing, and if the mood on this night was any indication, folks out here are tired of being the local punch line ... particularly when it didn't have to be this way.
Just an hour before a sizable portion of the 78,543 fans in attendance started filing out in defeat, the Rose Bowl was rocking and rolling with the news from 16 miles away that those hated Southern California Trojans had been upset by Stanford. I'm not sure how everybody in the crowd knew -- radios, I guess -- but the moment Stanford scored the winning touchdown a loud roar filled the air, and it was so deep and out of nowhere that the UCLA and Notre Dame players seemed genuinely confused, unaware of the shocker until it was later relayed by the public-address announcer to another loud ovation.
"SC sucks! SC sucks!"
Guys on the UCLA sideline waved towels, and the Bruin fans could not have been more pleased with their chant. They felt they were going to be able to celebrate a UCLA win and USC loss, and that doesn't happen too often.
In other words, it was going to be a great night in Westwood.
But then, on cue, the Bruins started matching the degree of suckiness from their crosstown rivals, and don't bother using the but-Ben-Olson-got-hurt argument. I know Olson was injured. I saw it happen. It was unfortunate. But it's not like UCLA was in the process of rolling over Notre Dame when the injury occurred late in the first quarter. The Bruins led 3-0 at the time, but the sack that caused the fumble that caused the injury gave Notre Dame the ball at the UCLA 1, meaning even with their starting quarterback the Bruins were essentially playing Notre Dame to a tie, which is ridiculous for a team that ranked 14th in the Associated Press preseason poll.
A 14-point loss to the Irish?
Seriously, this is a Notre Dame team that hadn't come close to beating anybody, a team that was routed by Georgia Tech (33-3), Penn State (31-10), Michigan (38-0), Michigan State (31-14) and Purdue (33-19) to start a season 0-5 for the first time in history. The Irish didn't even score an offensive touchdown until their fourth game, and they wouldn't have got one this game if not for a third-quarter possession that started on the UCLA 2.
Long story short, Notre Dame again looked just as awful as Britney Spears at the VMAs.
That much I predicted correctly.
But UCLA looked worse.
Which is difficult to do.
And even harder to survive, particularly for a coach already facing criticism.
