The UCLA Bruins are excited for the open practice that Coach DeShaun Foster and his staff have planned.
Head coach DeShaun Foster and his UCLA Bruins are excited about Saturday’s open practice. This will be a great opportunity to see the new looked offense, and of course how the defense can adjust to it.
Foster has been very positive and upbeat during his first practices as a head coach in College Football. The former running back knows the challenges of getting ready for opponents in the Big Ten, but he is just focusing on making his team better, and showing off a little excitement in the practice Saturday.
After practice earlier this week, the team put out a video with all the information for the event. This will be the first of back-to-back Saturdays where the Bruins football practice is open to the public. You can find the information here:
Join us this Saturday, August 10 for open practice! đ
đ Wasserman Football Center â° 9:15am PT âď¸ Post-practice autographs đ Giveaways đ żď¸ Park in Lot 8 pic.twitter.com/rM34ONfRMv
Of course, the first home game for UCLA is on September 14th, 2024. They will take on the Indiana Hoosiers. UCLA is still counting down to the first game of the season, which is set for August 31st in Hawaii.
College football will be here before you know it, and that means anticipation of going to its hallowed stadiums. Among those excited for it are the ESPN writers who cover the sport. To reflect that, ESPN asked 14 of them to rank their top 20 stadiums in order. From there, the top 25 stadiums would be determined.
Notre Dame Stadium comes in at fourth on the list behind LSU’s Tiger Stadium, the Rose Bowl and Michigan Stadium. Adam Rittenberg was given the honor talking about the Irish’s home:
“Since opening in 1930, Notre Dame Stadium has hosted some of college football’s most significant teams, players, coaches and moments. But the venue is known as much for what lies just beyond its northern edge as for what’s inside.
Since fall 1964, the ‘Word of Life’ mural on the university library tower has welcomed ball carriers to the north end zone. Known as ‘Touchdown Jesus,’ the mural depicts Jesus Christ with his arms raised, similar to the touchdown signal. Located a little more than a football field away from the Knute Rockne Gate, where Notre Dame players enter for each game, Touchdown Jesus is visible from a portion of seats in the south part of the stadium and is frequently shown in camera shots of Notre Dame contests.”
All things considered, this was as good a ranking as Notre Dame Stadium could have hoped for. Do you agree, or should it have been higher? But that’s the point of these lists. We debate them until the cows come home, and this should be no exception.
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According to a scenario The Sporting News laid out, Oregon and Ohio State would meet in the CFP quarterfinals at the Rose Bowl.
As if one game with Ohio State inside Autzen Stadium isn’t enough of a season highlight for the Oregon football team, The Sporting News has the two teams facing off again in the Rose Bowl.
According to the long time publication, the Ducks and Buckeyes will play in Pasadena in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal for the chance at the semifinal at the Cotton Bowl.
Unfortunately for Oregon, TSN has the Buckeyes moving on to play Notre Dame, the No. 6 seed in their projections.
In the earlier round, The Sporting News has the No. 7-seeded Ducks hosting the No. 10-seed Ole Miss and Lane Kiffin in what they describe as a “shootout.” Oregon’s defense might differ with that particular assessment of how that matchup would go down, however.
If the Ducks and Buckeyes were to meet in the playoffs, it could very well be the third time these two teams play in one season as both are favorites to reach the Big Ten title game. It would be unprecedented for a three-time matchup, but college football is in unprecedented times and it would create quite the rivalry.
Former Oregon Ducks point guard Payton Pritchard rocked an Oregon shirt at the Boston Celtics championship parade on Friday.
On Monday, the Boston Celtics won the 2024 NBA Championship, making West Linn, Oregon, native Payton Pritchard the fifth former Oregon Duck to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
The Celtics held their championship parade on Friday, and Pritchard made sure not to forget his home state and alma mater, rocking a 1994 Pac-10 champions Oregon Rose Bowl shirt for the festivities.
Boston point guard Derrick White played fantastic throughout the playoffs, which limited Pritchard’s minutes. Still, Pritchard found his way to make an impact in the Celtics’ five-game victory over the Dallas Mavericks. His best performance came in Game 4, the Celtics’ sole loss, when he gave Boston 11 points, 3 assists, and 3 rebounds in 22 minutes.
Pritchard’s shirt isn’t where the Ducks’ connection to the Boston Celtics parade ends, with Boston parades celebrating on Duck boats. Duck boats are amphibious vehicles used for tours in Boston that are transformed into party boats after Boston sports championships.
The Celtics’ win on Monday night snapped a pattern of coming so close to absolute victory before falling short for Pritchard. At Oregon, Pritchard was a part of the 2017 Ducks team that reached the Final Four, where they fell to North Carolina. Then in 2020, Pritchard’s Celtics fell to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals, and two years later, Boston lost to Golden State in the NBA Finals.
Any championship is sweet. But after coming so close, so many times, it has to feel sweeter.
Moore called it ‘the most important drive in #Michigan history.’ #GoBlue
Was it the most important drive in Michigan football history? If you ask the current Wolverines head coach, he would say it was — at least that was his thought at the time.
Now Sherrone Moore is the head coach of the maize and blue but when the Wolverines were down, 20-13, to Alabama late in the fourth quarter of the Rose Bowl, Moore was the offensive coordinator. Thus, he had the most nerve-wracking job of just about anyone in the world at that specific time on Jan. 1. He had to engineer a drive to ensure that his team had an opportunity to win and thus make it to the national championship game.
Easier said than done, to be sure.
Moore went in detail with Joel Klatt what it was like calling the plays for that final drive in regulation against the Crimson Tide, what was going through his mind, and how he made his decisions on each of the plays, starting with the fourth-and-2 pass from J.J. McCarthy to running back Blake Corum, keeping Michigan’s title hopes alive.
“I’m never really nervous to call a drive, never really anxious. That drive, I was looking around. I looked at the clock, I looked at the time, I said, ‘This is like the most important drive in Michigan football history,” Moore told Joel Klatt. “That’s how I thought of it and looked up to the sky and asked my grandpa like, ‘Hey, Pops, need some help here. Help me out. Love you.’
“And I’ll never forget, I was walking and all the linemen strapping their helmets on and J.J. comes up to me and said, ‘Hey, Pops, we got you.’ And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re about to go score on this drive!’ And we’d been moving the ball a little bit but not as much. And that drive, we went down and scored on a fourth-and-2 call, so we ran it, had a play action on third-and-2 with Orji in the game. It didn’t work out, they had it covered. And it was fourth-and-2 and I knew coach (Harbaugh) was gonna say go for it.
“Fourth-and-2, I already knew what call we were gonna do. I knew the pick route, I knew what we were gonna do, knew how it had set up because we’d shifted in motion and made it look the same the whole game when we ran duo. And then they were calling out, ‘run!’ Yeah. And then Blake pops open and we go down the field and Roman gets the block in the back so guys are like, ‘Oh, no! We’re coming back!’ Like no, I think we still got the first down.
“And we got the first down, called the run option with J.J. we hadn’t run all game. It was set up — I was like, ‘OK, this is the time then.’ Came back to a play action that we actually called earlier in the game but the route spacing wasn’t right. We fixed it on the sideline and then Roman popped open and made an incredible catch, made the guy miss as he landed.
“And then the play that I called second I was actually going to call first. But I got a little closer and then all of a sudden called the play-action to Roman and slipped out and it was a touchdown.
“So that drive will hold true forever in my mind of how it went down at the time and what happened as a result.”
The SEC has been the most successful conference in recent college football, but the Pac-12 made it possible.
The history of college football contains many rivers of influence and importance. The Pac-12 has not been a particularly successful conference in the 21st century — with no national championship since USC in 2004 — but the Pac-12, as it dies, leaves behind a legacy of supreme importance in college football. The SEC might be the best and most successful conference today, but it wouldn’t have received a catapult toward greatness without the Pac-12.
To be clear and precise: Obviously, the Pac-12 did not exist 100 years ago, but we are of course referring to schools and conferences whose members would eventually comprise what became the Pac-12. The conference used to be the Pac-10. Before that, the Pac-8. Before that, the AAWU and the Pacific Coast Conference. West Coast schools which carry the Pac-12 banner — under one name or another — are part of the foundational moments in college football history. There are a few to consider, and they all had a seismic impact in shaping the sport we know today, even as the Pac-12 recedes into history.
One central game with a Pac-12 school: Stanford versus Michigan in the very first Rose Bowl in 1902. Imagine that: Nearly 125 years ago, someone conceived of the idea of having a bowl game, and not only that, but having it in a perfect Southern California setting. The Rose Bowl wouldn’t be played for another decade and a half after that 1902 game, but the seed had been planted. Granddaddy was born.
Another central game in the formation of college football was the 1925 Rose Bowl between Notre Dame and Stanford.
Fighting Irish Wire could tell you how important this game was. We know it, too:
The 1925 Rose Bowl in which Notre Dame beat Stanford was one of the most important games in the history of college football. It featured Notre Dameâs iconic Four Horsemen and Stanford head coach Pop Warner, but it also drew Notre Dame to the West Coast, which planted seeds that led to the creation of the USC-Notre Dame football rivalry between coaches Howard Jones and Knute Rockne. The 1925 Rose Bowl helped made college football a truly national sport played across the whole of the United States.
The third game with a Pac-12 team involved is the one with the SEC angle. The 1926 Rose Bowl in which Alabama beat Washington is credited with launching Alabama football as a national force and creating a belief throughout the South that the region could create elite football programs which would be able to play with the other regional powers such as Notre Dame, Michigan, the Ivy League powers, and others. College Football was a primarily northern and eastern sport. The 1926 Rose Bowl was in many ways the grand emergence of the SEC. If Washington had hammered Bama that day, the SEC might not be remotely close to where it is now.
See what you did, Huskies?
The point remains: The Pac-12 had a place — and a part — in three supremely foundational college football games. You can’t write the full history of the sport and its evolution without the Pac-12.
What’s your memories of the four Rose Bowls mentioned?
The Wisconsin Badgers had four of its legendary games mentioned in ESPN’s Bill Connelly’s ranking of the ‘best all-time games between 2024’s new conference mates.’
The list looks back at some of college football’s most legendary games that, in the past, were non-conference battles. Those listed contests would now be conference bouts with Texas and Oklahoma in the SEC and Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA in the Big Ten.
Among the top 50 games: Wisconsin’s 38-31 win over UCLA in the 1999 Rose Bowl at No. 28 overall, its 21-16 win over UCLA in the 1994 Rose Bowl at No. 27, its 45-38 loss to Oregon in the 2012 Rose Bowl at No. 8 and, finally, its 42-37 loss to USC in the 1963 Rose Bowl at No. 5 overall.
The list is headlined by the all-time classic 2018 Rose Bowl contest between Oklahoma and Georgia — a game won by the Bulldogs 54-48 in double overtime on a 27-yard touchdown run by Sony Michel.
Klingler's 716 yards! Shedeur's 510! White's 247! Dayne's 246! Symons' 5 INTs! Scootin' Gary Danielson! TURNOVER PLANK! Case McCoy! Beck to Harline! Ricky! Richard Nixon! Sony Michel!
One significant Wisconsin game left off the ranking is its 28-27 loss to Oregon in the 2020 Rose Bowl. The game would have been a classic if Danny Davis wasn’t called for a phantom offensive pass interference on Wisconsin’s final drive. The Badgers were the better team that afternoon, but suffered significant self-inflicted wounds and could not contain Oregon QB Justin Herbert’s legs.
Otherwise, it’s good to see some of Wisconsin’s best all-time games get recognized along with the sports’ best.
Now the real question: how long until the Badgers are back in the Rose Bowl?
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Thereâs one obvious reason this is No. 1 – Itâs The Rose Bowl. Nearly everyone who is anyone in the history of college football has played here. Although UCLA itself doesnât bring much historically to the table, The Rose Bowl Game is truly The Granddaddy of Them All, and this venue will forever stand as the most iconic in the nation.
The Horseshoe, The Big House, and the Coliseum (the home of USC) were the next up in that order, but the Rose Bowl will always be a legendary place.
We’re of course talking about the 2024 Rose Bowl, the granddaddy of them all, which took place on January 1 between the Michigan Wolverines and the Alabama Crimson Tide.
If you’re living under a rock, then let’s explain what made the game so hype: Michigan football, which hadn’t won a bowl game since 2015, was facing off against a Nick Saban-coached juggernaut in Alabama. A 1-seed, the Wolverines weren’t as highly thought of as their predecessors who were also national champions. Yet, despite nearly turning the ball over on the second play of the game, Michigan dominated the first half, only to let Alabama come back and take a late lead. Quarterback J.J. McCarthy orchestrated a late drive to tie the game, and in overtime, it was a vintage Blake Corum scamper for a touchdown and a defensive stand which rewarded the maize and blue with a win and a trip to the national championship game.
It was also the first time since 2007 that Michigan made a trip to Pasadena, making it extra special.
As it turns out, it was a bigger-than-usual Rose Bowl in many ways. The official Rose Bowl X (formerly Twitter) account reported this week that the 2024 game was the largest to watch it in-person since 1999.
What’s more, it was the most-watched bowl game, with 27.76 million tuning in to see the Wolverines beat the Crimson Tide in epic fashion.
With 19 million watching Michigan beat Ohio State, 10 million watching the Big Ten Championship Game against Iowa, and 9 million tuning into the runfest over Penn State, only Alabama rivaled the Wolverines’ overall viewership in 2023. Thus, it makes sense that when the two teams played against each other, the fan bases both packed the house.
The college football schedule in December could look a bit hectic this upcoming season with the playoff expansion.
It was a foregone conclusion that once college football went into a playoff format it would be expanded for more teams than just four.
That expansion begins this coming year as the College Football Playoff will include a total of 12 teams with the top four receiving a first-round bye. Those first-round games will be played on campus sites.
Expansion doesn’t just mean more teams, however.
The football calendar will also be pushed to the limit and will resemble the NFL playoffs and will last nearly that long. The days of college football ending on New Year’s are long over.
For those two teams that make the National Championship, they would have played 15 or 16 total games. There was a reason the regular season ended in late November and most bowl games were played in the southern part of the country.
The weather.
A December game played at Wisconsin or Michigan won’t be fun for players or fans, but these extra playoff games will rack in the dough for schools to spread around.
On top of just the new playoff games, coaches and programs will also have to deal with the transfer portal and the early signing period, both of which will come in early December as well. Here’s a look at the upcoming schedule for the 2024-25 season, wich dates set for games this postseason.
