Bruins Nation, a UCLA Bruins community

Four years, 27 losses, one head coach.

That is the sobering stat line associated with the UCLA football team’s senior class that will take the field for the last time on Saturday.

"There is no reason that UCLA shouldn't be in the top 25 every year,...The level of talent on the team right now, they should be better."

The majority of the 49ers players are the same ones who went 6-10 last year. They floundered and faltered, couldn't win on the road or in the clutch. The last time they faced the Giants -- in New York in 2008 -- the dismal performance led to Mike Nolan's midseason firing. The result of that change was two more losing seasons under Mike Singletary.

But it turns out the players weren't the problem. They needed a coach who knew what he was doing, who put them in position to win.

Fun facts: Rice considered walking on at Cal, but decided it was too close to home. He played high school football (and basketball) at Menlo School in Atherton, Calif.

This means that a future UCLA passing combination could be Bono-to-Rice, which should bring back memories for 49ers fans. Only this QB will be Christoph Bono, the son of former UCLA and 49ers quarterback Steve Bono, who is a freshman for the Bruins. Christoph Bono attended Palo Alto High, which is just a few miles from Menlo School on the San Francisco Peninsula. He was coached by Earl Hansen, who also coached Jim Harbaugh when he played QB at Palo Alto.

N is for Neuheisel. Sometimes you get no signals from life, and then sometimes you get a streaker stopping a live play and sparking a brawl on the field. Rick Neuheisel should have resigned the moment the brawl broke out between his dysfunctional team and the Arizona Wildcats, not because a brawl is shameful, but because it was as clear a sign as he's going to get from the universe that UCLA football has devolved to something vaguely resembling performance art.