All of us here can name a number of Bruin greats who have achieved on the college gridiron and moved on and achieved great things in the NFL and in life in general. But ask anyone outside the Bruin family to name the first person they think of when you say UCLA Football, and the overwhelming majority will say Troy Aikman. Sure, it’s due mostly to his NFL career and the superbowls, but it is the reality.

I think Cade McNown was a better college QB. Great win/loss record, the records, 4-0 against South Central; but ask your common man outside the program about Cade McNown and they’ll say, who?

I believe, if there is going to be a close second it would be Donahue. I know he is not very popular here. I’m on the fence about him. I do think that if he had stayed at UCLA a little longer, that he would have won the National championship with the 97 & 98 teams that Toledo mismanaged. But, that is conjecture. Again, approaching this from an outside perspective rather than our own inside view, i think more outsiders would pick Donahue before Neuheisel.

Rick, Cade and Troy. I chose Rick because he’s the most recent face and is doing a heck of a job so far. As Norm Chow says, the play on the field can’t start with the quarterback therefore he’s the most important position on the field.

i remember when my older brother was a student at UCLA and he would take me to home football games. we were standing in the student section when Cade McNown had that memorable play against Washington State where he flipped into the end zone. i think he really won our hearts during that memorable 1998 season, where UCLA became the inaugural team to get screwed over by the BCS.

I saw him in Dallas down at the bar in the ritz, I felt too embarrassed to have him sign a hotel notepad, so I just said hi and told him I’m a bruin fan transplanted in SMU.

But I reserve the right to change that to CRN in the next couple of years.

Probably no one on this board loves Troy Aikman more than me, but the fact remains that he never beat Southern Cal or won a Rose Bowl. If he had played all four years at UCLA, it may have been a different story. Cade beat Southern Cal all four years and went to the Rose Bowl.

But I understand why people voted for Troy Aikman since he probably had the best pro career of any Bruin, and therefore is the most recognizable.

CRN bleeds blue and gold and will pour his heart and soul into bringing us back to greatness. If he succeeds, then he will be the face of UCLA football.

If we focused only on their collegiate careers, then one could say OJ Simpson deserves to be the face of u$c (I know, he probably does anyway). So I think it’s impossible to ignore what else the players have done in their lives.

Troy donated a huge amount of money ($1 million?) from his NFL signing bonus to UCLA right off the bat. His pro career stands above any other Bruin. Super Bowls, MVP, all of Dallas’ passing records, and a first ballot HOF’er. He (with Joe Buck) has become Fox’s #1 broadcast duo.

But Troy’s off-the-job activities are just as impressive. Troy won the NFL’s Man Of The Year – a very prestigious award. His charitable foundation focuses on childrens health, and has built play areas in several childrens hospitals around the country, with the goal of having one in every NFL city. There are no stories about handicapped parking cards or stealing teammate’s playmate girlfriends (then losing them), or holdouts, or squandered talent. Everything Troy has done has been pure class.

I love Cade (and I have his jersey), and agree that Cade had a better UCLA career, but I can’t ignore the rest of the story. So when I think about who I brag about having gone to UCLA, it’s Troy every time. And if Donahue had called for Troy to roll out from the 6 against Wazzu, he would have waltzed into the endzone and we would have stayed #1.

then I’d put this guy ahead of Aikman and Ogden.

And the more I think about it, the more I’d put Jackie Robinson #2 as the “face of the UCLA football program” behind Neu.