UCLA’s 8-0 start has the Bruins sitting at No. 8 in the first College Football Playoff rankings, but the Rose Bowl hasn’t exactly matched the moment.
Bob Chesney has turned UCLA into a real playoff contender in short order, and the latest proof came last Saturday in a 27-0 shutout of Nevada. Even with the Bruins rolling, the atmosphere was described as sleepy, and the empty seats were hard to miss.
Former UCLA star Troy Aikman didn’t sugarcoat what he saw.
“Little embarrassing that we were 7-0 going into last week’s game and, they shoot it pretty low (on TV) so you can’t really tell when you’re watching the game, I’m told there was about 20-25,000 people at the game,” Aikman said on Dallas sports radio this week. “So when you have a stadium at the Rose Bowl that holds over 100,000, 25,000, it may as well be empty as opposed to some other stadiums that maybe hold 40,000.
“We’ve got to get people going to games, we’ve got to get them excited about it. And then you say, ‘Well, how do you get them excited?
If 7-0 doesn’t get them excited, what will?’ I don’t know the answer to that.”
The numbers on the field are hard to argue with. UCLA is on pace for at least its first 10-win season since 2014, and the wins still count whether the Rose Bowl is full or not.
Still, the crowd issue is real. Los Angeles hasn’t been an easy place to draw for college football, and UCLA’s start hasn’t changed that overnight.
The Bruins’ rise has drawn comparisons to Curt Cignetti’s turnaround at Indiana, where the fan response came quickly. UCLA, for now, is a different story.
The Bruins have two home games left in the regular season, against Illinois in two weeks and then USC in the finale. If they handle those, another home date could be waiting in the playoff.
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