UCLA Football: Attendance Woes and Coaching Impact

What Bob Chesney is doing at UCLA is tremendous, but the reason is, and again, I tuned into the show, and I think the reason John is right, big picture, and this is going to take some time, but this is really a barometer test for how well UCLA really embraces this team. This is a very fair weather town. Thank you. It is embarrassing, and I say that as someone who will say, listen, Los Angeles is a fair-weather town. According to Ben Bolch, my good friend of the California Post, and again, he's going off of numbers given to him by UCLA. UCLA against Wisconsin, top-10 team. Again, we kind of knew that they would be a top-10 team if they won. They didn't break 40,000 at the Rose Bowl, right? They're still tarps up. Again, it's going to take time. But the reason that if you want to keep Bob Chesney here, it's not just having to pay these players what they deserve to get paid. You got to fill up that place. I mean, it is really depressing to have one of the top 10 teams in the country, the last undefeated team in one of the top two conferences. And not again, no one is expecting UCLA to sell out the Rose Bowl, but you got to crack, you know, 60,000 or something along those lines. But again, Grant, to your point, it is amazing what he has done. He's really turned around the culture with that team. And so we are really setting up for, and again, we have a long ways to go before then. That last game of the year, UCLA-USC at the Rose Bowl, the winner of that game, depending on how USC does, I have a good feeling of how UCLA will do. I think the winner of that game could find its way into the college football playoff. John, I I'm so glad you said that, Raj. To me, I remember I know it was a long time ago. So people will have to go in a way back to a time machine to remember this week. I think it was zero, maybe week one of college football when Lincoln Riley played a game at home and nobody saw it because it was a million degrees outside. And then the nation all talked about, oh, no one wants to see Lincoln Riley. You had writers, local writers, none, none, none here, none here. But going out and saying, oh, Lincoln Riley doesn't have the ear of the university. He doesn't have the students aren't on his side. UCLA, they got the ball rolling and they still can't get people to come to their game. This is about whether or not that university wants to transition into being a basketball school. You can't tell me they ain't got the money because they do. That's laughable. Because if this was basketball, they'd have paid to have the 10 best players money can buy. So I don't want to hear nothing. UCLA has the money. UCLA has the name brand. They're an iconic university. Their name rings bells across this country. If they wanted to be good at football with this particular coach, they will find the dollars to do so. I don't think they care. Here's the thing real quickly. I mean, they've really put a good team in place. Tim Harris, who was a longtime executive with the Los Angeles Lakers, did an amazing thing. He said, if you're a student, you can come to games for free. the issue is and again if you live in Los Angeles you know this but if you don't they play their games at the Rose Bowl which is not close to campus at all but not only that and as someone who has traveled the world has been so blessed to do this for 25 years maybe the worst parking situation in the world in terms of going to a game so it's like tickets are free for students you park on the golf course don't you park on the golf course so it's like what are we doing here like you're trying to figure out what tee you're parking next to right but then it's like it's $25 like you get in price and we I often talk about that on social media so you it is not expensive right it is free if you're a student if you're not a student it's $25 and so for you not to be able to crack $40,000 according to Ben Bulger of the California Post and I say that because I'm not like I'm not making up this figure you can say what it looked like If you're not cracking 50,000 at the Rose Bowl, it looks empty. So we'll see how they do. Big picture, though, I just think this is so great, and I really hope as a college football and a sports fan here that they keep Bob Chesney. But again, this happened long before we were both born. But Dick Vermeil was a diamond in the rough they had at UCLA. He was there for two years, and then he got hired somewhere else. It's just if Bob Chigney could turn around UCLA, there's going to be some other programs outside we have a lot more money we're going to come to him and no knock on Bob I would probably take the money and it might be the school across town everybody's mad about I think that would be tough that would be tough for Bob I think it would be more like an SEC school or maybe another big I mean these coaches take money baby these coaches take money and who can grow money yeah i mean here here's where you're you've been right and i've tuned into the show and i heard you talk about it it's not about the here and now coaches think the reason Lane Kiffin's left and this will be my last thought on this you can say what you want about lane he's thinking big picture it's not about can i win this year can i win for the next 10 years and so if you go to USC or if you go to like another like big time program they're gonna give you 50 million dollars per year on your roster that is something that UCLA cannot do right now