FanPost

Night at the Rose Bowl


So this is my first fanpost and I just wanted to give my impressions of the Spring game and some of the other events around it.  This was the first Spring game I went to and I was surprised by the number of people that made it out there.  There were plenty of people tailgating and hopefully Ill be able to talk some of my friends into showing up next time.  My wife and I arrived about 10 minutes after 3 and there were already about three rows of cars in the grass parking area and the rest seemed to fill up quickly.  I think they must have opened up the lots before 3 but still there must have been quite a line of cars waiting for the gates to open. 

Another thing I was really impressed with was the class they offered for women.  I had signed my wife up for it with her permission but she really didnt seem to excited about it.  I walked her to the gate and then met her there again at 4:30 and when she came out she had a huge smile on her face.  She had a great time and made a new friend and saw another girl she knew from work.  She enjoyed the whole experience and mentioned several times how charismatic CRN is.  I think this is a great program and Im really glad they are doing it.  Now if only my wife would have actually learned something about football it would have been perfect.  Maybe next year.

I dont really have anything new to add to the previous descriptions of the scrimmage.  I was hoping to see more from the offense though the running game seemed to be better, especially Coleman.  Also a number of the running plays involving the quarterback definitely would have gained many more yards if they were allowed to continue.  I think it was a good decision not to allow the quarterbacks to be hit though.  I think after his first year here CRN has to be so scared of injuries to his quarterbacks that we should assume they are going to be off limits to contact in the future.  If only all quarterbacks could take a beating like Craft could.

I do want to mention that the defense looked a lot better than I expected.  This is especially true for the front 7.  They were getting penetration often and it really looks like there shouldnt be to much of a drop off from last year.  The secondary looked especially good but I expected that.  We have three starters returning and our probable new starting corner has plenty of experience.  Even the second string defense looked good.  Abbott looked especially good.  Its nice to feel that we finally have some real depth at most positions.  Im hopeful that in another year we wont really need any of the incoming freshmen to fill out the two deep.

After the scrimmage we headed down to the field to see some of the players.  Saw Jerry Rice which was pretty cool.  I didnt get a chance to take a picture with him because he was ushered off the field as soon as I got close but still cool.  I was able to see Ayers, Franklin, Presley and a few others and all of them seem like really great kids.  They were all smiles as they signed endless autographs and posed for a ton of pictures.  CRN actually had the biggest crowd and kept telling every one that he wasnt leaving until he had gotten to everybody.  I made sure to tell him how awesome it was that he went over to Iraq to visit the troops last year.  Those types of things do help morale.  I did see Dietrich Riley as he tried to get close to CRN and say hi.  Security was trying to usher people out of the stadium at this time and made Dietrich move away from Neuheisel because they didnt recognize him and I guess he didnt have the wrist brand because he got there late.  They started having doubts once people started asking Dietrich for autographs and finally a Sergeant with the Pasadena police who recognized him let him back up on the walkway so he could say hi to CRN.  Also my wife says Riley has really nice eyes.  Just thought I would throw that out there if any of you were wondering about that.

Finally we went to the Rose Bowl again on Sunday for the select a seat event.  This is my second year with season tickets and the first time I came to this event.  It was pretty cool and pretty well put together.  They showed a nice little video of CRN promoting the program and then the UCLA marketing guy who seemed to be in charge of the whole thing talked about the program and mentioned the SC game last year and how it ended and how that is not sitting well with the coaches and they are determined to make sure it doesnt happen again.  Just some good motivational stuff before he asked all of us cheap skates to purchase more expensive tickets and make donations to the athletic fund.  I wasnt able to do either this year but maybe next year.  I was still able to move 2 sections closer to mid-field which was nice.  Im now at the side of the endzone instead of almost directly behind it.

One thing I have noticed is that both the women Bruins football class as well as the select a seat day are both in there third year.  I dont know if CRN was the driving force behind this or if the marketing department happend to hire someone with a clue three years ago but I just thought that was interesting.  I think both programs are definitly good ones for the fans and will help bring in new ones or make long time fans more active in the program.  Im looking forward to this coming season.  GO BRUINS!!!

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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