After two dreadful blowout losses to Arizona State and Stanford, UCLA football arrived back at the Rose Bowl banged up, unranked, and fourth of six in the Pac-12 South Division. But they still have a chance to keep their Pac-12 Championship and College Football Playoff hopes alive, beginning with a game at the Rose Bowl on Thursday night against the 20th-ranked California Golden Bears, who had a bye week the previous week after falling short 30-24 against then-5th-ranked Utah in Salt Lake City. The loss to Utah was Cal's only loss coming into this game. The first half went very well for the Bruins. After a Cal field goal, UCLA had 23 unanswered points. First, there was a 42-yard field goal by UCLA senior kicker Ka'imi Fairbairn. Then UCLA freshman quarterback Josh Rosen threw a touchdown pass to junior tight end Thomas Duarte. Then Rosen found senior wide receiver Devin Fuller for a 19-yard touchdown pass. Afterwards, Fairbairn kicked a 20-yard field goal. The score was 23-3 before Cal junior quarterback Jared Goff threw a great touchdown pass to wide receiver Kenny Lawler to cut the lead to 23-10. On the following UCLA drive, Ka'imi Fairbairn set a new career-long UCLA record with a 60-yard field goal. This was also the second longest field goal in Pac-12 conference history. The last time any kicker has kicked a field that was 60-yards or longer was Rice University's Chris Boswell in 2013.
The halftime show was hilarious for Bruin fans. Both Cal's and UCLA's marching bands performed "The Fall of Troy" together. This story was based on the Greek myth that featured Odysseus. There were also band members dressed as Trojans. At the beginning, after Menelaus and Helen's wedding celebration, Trojans stormed in and stole Helen. The Greeks went over to Troy to battle against them, but they lost. So the Greeks created a wooden horse and loaded a few people inside the horse. It was sent over to Troy and fooled the Trojans, who hailed this huge horse. Afterwards, the Greeks stormed into Troy and defeated the Trojans. After the show, it was stated that history will repeat as both Cal and UCLA's football teams will defeat the USC Trojans football team later this season.
The Bruins received the second half kickoff and scored off of it with Josh Rosen throwing his third touchdown pass of the night to Devin Fuller for 21 yards. After a Cal punt, UCLA had a chance to load up more points on the Bears, but that was stopped after Bruins defender Kenny Lacy committed a holding penalty. A holding penalty is when a player tries to block a player on the opposite team but making contact above the shoulders. This led to UCLA's first punt. A punt is when a team on offense kicks the ball to the opposing team when they think they cannot convert on fourth down. Cal scored on the following drive, but failed the two-point conversion. The score was 33-16. But the Bruins responded as UCLA freshman running back Soso Jamabo ran the ball into the end zone from 2 yards out to extend the lead to 40-16. The final score was 40-24 since Cal scored a touchdown plus had a successful 2-point conversion. UCLA managed to bounce back after two harsh back-to-back losses to seal their fifth win of the season. UCLA is only one victory away from becoming bowl eligible. That means that if a team has six victories, they can play an extra game at the end of the football season to know their final place at the end of the season.
UCLA returned to the top 25 on Sunday morning. The Bruins are now ranked 24th in the country while Cal dropped out of the top 25. This is the beginning of a rebuilding time in this football season for UCLA. The Bruins' chances at making it to the Pac-12 Championship have risen significantly as then-3rd-ranked Utah suffered their first loss of the season to USC, who is tied with Arizona State and UCLA for second in the Pac-12 South Division, unfortunately. As of now, for UCLA to win the Pac-12 South, the Bruins need to win out, meaning that they need to win the rest of their games this season. The Arizona Wildcats can provide some assistance for UCLA's Pac-12 title hopes by also winning out, although they just barely lost 45-42 to the Washington State Cougars. Arizona State, who beat the Bruins 38-23 at the Rose Bowl earlier this year, needs to lose a game because they hold the tiebreaker over UCLA. Both of ASU's in-conference losses come against USC and Utah. They had a bye week this week and they will play against the Oregon Ducks of the Pac-12 North Division. The Ducks may give ASU their third conference loss of the year. Colorado has no chance whatsoever of winning the Pac-12 South despite defeating Oregon State this past weekend. USC can just do what they do, and Utah needs to lose to UCLA later this season, thanks to USC ripping open Utah's weaknesses to other teams.
UCLA will play against Colorado this Saturday, which is Halloween, surprisingly. The game is at the Rose Bowl and game time starts at 12 noon. Cal will play against USC up in Berkeley (Yes, UC Berkeley is referred to as Cal) on the same day. I hope history does repeat itself as Cal will beat USC. I also hope that 24th-ranked UCLA will defeat Colorado and become bowl eligible. Gooooooo Bruins!!!!!!!!
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