UCLA Football: What is the Point of Being a Fan?

That’s not a woe-is-me rhetorical question. I genuinely want to look at what we expect from the fan-team relationship, specifically as it pertains to UCLA Football.

One of my favorite reads is the Eye Test by IE Angel that BruinsNation.com runs after every UCLA football game. Angel has the time and football acumen to break down the tape each week and catalog every play, every penalty, every coaching decision against the rubric by which he grades every Bruins performance. Even when I disagree with Angel – when I occasionally think he’s being too harsh – his argument is well-written and well-reasoned, and I come away knowing more about the game than I did before.

‘UCLA cannot and will not win a conference championship on talent alone…’

Nov 8, 2014; Seattle, WA, USA; UCLA Bruins head coach Jim Mora watches pre game warmups against the Washington Huskies at Husky Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

I would agree with this. Thankfully, the team as constructed doesn’t have to rely on talent alone. Players are improving, the offensive and defensive schemes (however frustrating at times) are significant improvements to the likes of Mike Johnson, Jay Norvell, Larry Kerr, and Joe Tresey – clearly the current coaching staff is significantly better than under Karl Dorrell or Rick Neuheisel. Is Jim Mora Urban Meyer? Of course not. But there’s a whole range of middle ground in which a fan can plant a flag and say, ‘At this level of coaching or better, I am satisfied.’

‘[W]e can all settle in for the next 10 years while UCLA wins 7-9 games in the regular season and goes to a lot of Alamo and Holiday Bowls.’

Do you realize how amazing this would have sounded to us ten years ago? We went from perennially 6-6 and booking an annual ticket to the Las Vegas Bowl under Dorrell to multiple seasons of 4-8 under Neuheisel. Do you remember how much we longed to just be relevant again? To have some kind of stability and identity? I know we can’t cling to ‘Battered Bruin Syndrome’ forever, but nor can we pretend that Mora didn’t inherit a resurrection job.

‘For the casual fan, that would probably be fine.’

I know Angel isn’t talking about me, so I’m not personally offended. But I will clarify that having realistic expectations instead of being perpetually aggrieved does not equal being a casual fan. I can simultaneously not want my team to have the all-devouring culture/expectations of a Florida State or Alabama and still be as die-hard, loyal, and passionate a UCLA fan as anyone else.

I love this team for what it is and could be, not in spite of what it isn’t.

I love this team; it has an inextricable place in my history and my memories of home and family. I have relied on my UCLA football affiliation to make friends with other college football (particularly Pac-10) fans at every new stage of my life. My wife and I eventually want to quit our jobs and move back to California in part so that we can raise our children immersed in an environment that isn’t actively indifferent to the sports loyalties we are trying to pass along to them (UCLA and the San Francisco Giants). I have to prove my fan credentials to no one.

But I love this team for what it is and could be, not in spite of what it isn’t.**

‘For the casual fan…[it’s easy to]…go on with the rest of your life unimpeded by the lack of progress of a team you do not play for. But, that type of stagnation is like death.’

This is the crux of the issue I was getting at on Monday – this idea that there’s no middle ground between stagnation and an inexorable progress towards unstoppable juggernaut status. Is there no value in being a good team, year-in and year-out, a conference stalwart, joining the Virginia Techs, Wisconsins, Clemsons, and Penn States of the world among the top 15-or-so programs in the nation?

Fans and coaches have similar hopes but different roles to play.

As I mentioned in my post on injuries and excuses, there’s a difference between the proper mindset of a coach and that of a fan. As much as fans and bloggers second-guess coaching decisions and criticize playcalling, we are not responsible for the improvement of the players or the performance of the team.

Demanding continuous progress is a good and appropriate stance for a coach who wants to motivate his players to improve and perform at their best. But that’s not necessarily true for fans, who want to support the team, share in their joys and glory, lord it over rivals, and build lasting memories and a community of people with which to share those memories. Fans and coaches have similar hopes but different roles to play.

‘Why bother investing in something with no light at the end of the tunnel?’

This one gets at my main complaint with any kind of national championship playoff for college football,*** whether that be of the two-team BCS variety, or the current four-team bracket format. Organizers have insisted on preserving the ‘every game counts’ ethos of college football. But they’ve eroded that ethos in an unexpected way. Sure, every game counts during a title run, but by reorienting the sport around the national championship, we risk rendering meaningless every game played by a team not in title contention.

But the problem with ‘tunnel’ vision is that you trick yourself into thinking that light can only come at the end. You prevent yourself from letting the team, the game, the entire experience be its own source of light.

UCLA, with three losses, is no longer in contention for a national title this year. Does that make next week’s game at Utah meaningless? Sure, it will provide valuable experience and opportunity for growth for the team/players as they work prepare for a title run next year. But does the game itself have any meaning divorced from what role it plays in bringing UCLA closer to a potential championship? The assumption behind Angel’s argument is no. Any game not instrumental in winning UCLA a title is part of a dark and endless ‘tunnel’ not worth your time, energy, passion, or money.

When I consider my relationship with UCLA Football, I think of plays and games and special seasons. I think of chanting ‘Four more years!’ twice afer beating USC. I think of two heartbreaking Rose Bowl losses to Wisconsin. I think of Rout 66, of beating Alabama and Michigan, of attending the win over Adrian Peterson‘s Sooners when I flew home for my wedding. I think of DeShaun Foster.

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I think of the miracle run in ’05, particularly the crazy comeback wins over Washington State and Stanford. I think of the gut punch of Brady Quinn finding Tom Zbikowski at the end of the game at Notre Dame in ’06. I think of Pat Cowan, Bruin hero. I think of Brett Hundley debuting against Rice and us fans collectively rediscovering what it was like to watch a quarterback that gave us hope and excitement.

Sep 25, 2014; Tempe, AZ, USA; UCLA Bruins defensive back Anthony Jefferson (23) celebrates a first half interception against the Arizona State Sun Devils at Sun Devil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

I think of the emotional roller coaster of the game at Nebraska right after Nick Pasquale died, from blue and yellow balloons in Lincoln to coming back from being down 21-3 to win 41-21 to the joy and grief with which Anthony Jefferson ran over to Mora with the recovered fumble so the ball could be given to the Pasquale family.

I think of using UCLA jersey numbers (as well as Giants jersey numbers) as table markers in our wedding. I think of finally, as an adult, getting my first dog and buying him the UCLA collar that he’s wearing now next to me as I type this. I think of buying a Bruins onesie for my daughter to wear to her first UCLA game last fall at Virginia. I think of what it will be like to bring my kids to their first UCLA game at the Rose Bowl.

None of those memories were a part of UCLA national title runs. Sure, ’98 and ’05 were seasons where the Bruins came close, but the value of those seasons was not erased by what did or didn’t happen at the end of them. Angel’s perspective, as stated, though, would deny that those years were worth the investment, would consider them ‘stagnant’ and ‘pointless.’

Look, there’s no right or wrong here, but that’s a hell of a way to define being a fan. If that’s what fandom means, then it’s a rigged, soul-crushing exercise in masochism – particularly in college football, with 128 teams of wildly unequal resources and little-to-no mechanism to ensure competitive balance. There’s a reason that no program has won its first national title in the last 30 years. After 146 years, the hierarchy of this sport is pretty baked into the cake, and UCLA’s place in it is rather set.

Set your expectations too low, and being a fan becomes insipid and patronizing. Setting them too high, though, is a recipe for nothing but angst and trauma. I want to revel in the program’s successes, reel from its disappointments, and rage against its unworthy custodians. I choose to set my expectations and the terms of my relationship with UCLA Football in a way that makes it a source of joy and meaning in my life, and I would exhort Angel and anyone else to allow themselves to do the same.

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* I don’t know Angel at all apart from his posts at Bruins Nation. As I mentioned above, I like his work, and this is in no way to be taken as an attack on him.

** I’m not saying that’s Angel, but it’s the implication of suggesting that anything short of enraged dissatisfaction means being a casual fan.

*** Though I know that ship has long since sailed.