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UCLA Bruins vs. Notre Dame Fighting Irish Preview 2007
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Last year I had a glorious trip to South Bend, Indiana to see the UCLA Bruins play the Notre Dame fighting Irish for the first time in 40 years. The Bruins led and looked like they were going to win, but the luck of the Irish prevailed and Brady Quinn, under pressure all day by a relentless UCLA defense, completed three straight passes in the final 62 seconds, capped by a 45-yard TD pass to Jeff Samardzija, to lead the Irish to a 20-17 come-from-behind victory. If someone had been equipped with a crystal ball and told the players that the LOSER of the UCLA / Notre Dame game would be allowed to beat the USC Trojans, you would have seen more passes thrown into the stands than CCNY and Kentucky combined from their 1951 point shaving scandal.
This year will be different. The game is at the Rose Bowl stadium, the UCLA Bruin home since 1984. It will be the first Irish team to come to the Rose Bowl stadium since the 1924 team beat Stanford in the 1925 Rose Bowl game. All indications are that tickets are not available for this game and it has been sold out since tickets were first available. There should be a partisan Bruin crowd around 90,000 on hand to witness this game. The Rose Bowl is a great place to watch a football game. After having been to Notre Dame Stadium, I agree that there is no denying the atmosphere. But the Sporting news and I agree that the Rose Bowl is the top college football venue. I have been there for UCLA games, including two UCLA-USC rivalry games and one Rose Bowl game. When that place is full, it can really rock. With the sun setting and the San Gabriel mountains in the background, there may be no better setting for college football than the Arroyo Seco.
As of this writing, Notre Dame is 0-4 after losing to Georgia Tech, Penn State, Michigan and Michigan State. Their next game is at Purdue. The Boilermakers have yet to be held under 45 points in their walk through four cake teams. Purdue just blotted the Minnesota Golden Gophers in Minneapolis 45-31. I predict that the Irish will be 0-5 coming into their first ever game at UCLA.
The Irish have been to Southern California many times before, and it is not like they do not know how to win there. According to the USC football media guide, Notre Dame has a 17-20-4 record in Los Angeles as of the 2006 season. The record goes to 18-20-4 if you count the 1925 Rose Bowl win.
UCLA is on a winning track. The Bruins fell hard against the Utah Utes 44-6 in Salt Lake City. The Utes responded to their new-found status of college football spoiler by losing at Nevada Las Vegas 0-27. Some of the more vocal UCLA fans have been calling for the head of Coach Karl Dorrell since he was hired, since he had no prior head coaching experience. The great football blog Every Day should be Saturday put it best: Bruins Nation’s Mullah Nestor issues the yearly fatwa on Karl Dorrell, calling 2007 his “show-me” year. 11-1, beating USC, and a Pac-10 championship. And a pony, too! Gimme gimme gimme gimme!
So far, no win has been good enough for the Bruin Nationalists, although they were able to put aside their venom for a few days after the 13-9 victory over USC. Imagine if the Bruins were 0-4 and Charlie Weis were the coach, would there be a problem with Charlie Weis? The answer is yes, since Weis is 0-2 vs. the USC Trojans. Weis also had no prior head coaching experience. Unless Charlie manages to secure a win over SC at Notre Dame this year, I predict he will be gone. He might anyway. UCLA has beaten BYU, Stanford, and Washington. Washington is never is freebie in my book, since I remember when Don James was the Huskies coach. The Bruins travel to Corvalis, Oregon to face the Oregon State Beavers as of this writing. This is a game they should win.
So UCLA would be 4-1 and Notre Dame would be 0-5. The Bruins should crush the Irish unless Jimmy Clausen can figure out how to protect himself and the ball.
<< Group29 UCLA vs Notre Dame 2006 college football preview
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Posted on Tuesday, September 25, 2007 @ 09:01:34 UTC by BB
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