[Updated] Chianti Dan’s Dream Comes True: UCLA Backs Into Pac-12 Title Game As "Champions" of "South"!

Awww yeah baby! Well the wildest of Neubian dream has come true. Rick Neuheisel just "won" his first "championship" as the head football coach at UCLA! YAY! Yes, that's right. Thanks to the unbelievable choke job by Utah Utes against the Colorado Buffaloes at their own stadium, the Bruins are have backed into - Donahue style - in the inaugural Pac-12 championship game (most likely in Eugene) as the pathetic representative of a no good, terrible "Southern" Division.

Utah's choke job against a horrible Colorado team this afternoon in Salt Lake City "clinched" a spot for the Bruins in the title game, as UCLA owns the tie-breaker record v. ASU and will win what is essentially second division of the conference by default. Check out Pac-12's expanded standings here.  I guess the joke is on Larry Scott. On the other hand - I can't wait to read the "blog" that is going to be emailed by Chianti Dan on Tuesday night.

What is hilarious this also means UCLA at least on paper can still miss a bowl game if it loses tomorrow night (18 point underdogs to the Trojans) and then get blown out int the "championship" game either at Autzen or Stanford stadium (chances are high for that). Although a 6-7 UCLA team as Pac-12's "South" Division "champions" will probably get a waiver from the NCAA and go to some pathetic bowl game because well the pickings are slim from the joke that is the South Division.

All of this is amusing for us because as UCLA fans, were were pretty lukewarm about the conference expansion process to begin with. Now we get to see the Bruins in a laughable "championship" game. Somewhere Kirk Herbstreit is also LHAO. Obviously this is surreal and this probably means that Chianti Dan now has talking points to hold on to Rick Neuheisel as our head coach for at least one more ("post season") game.

The other question that all Bruin alums and season ticket holders should be asking is how UCLA can look so bad against a team like Utah, when the Utes couldn't beat a team that hadn't won a road conference game since 2007. The answer to this question just reconfirms what an unbelievable underachievement this entire 2011 regular season has been for Neuheisel's Bruins. It also underscores the point no matter what transpires in what is a meaningless game tomorrow (in terms of LOL "championship" implications), we will need a wholesale regime change in Westwood.

GO BRUINS.

UPDATE (N): As noted by Ted Miller after relaying a Pac-12 release tonight:

So the Bruins are not champions, at least not yet.

As for the Trojans, here's the official word from Pac-12 spokesman Dave Hirsch on whether USC can claim the South championship: "USC can not own that title. USC can say that it finished first, but not champion. Our division champions participate in the championship game, so UCLA will be considered champion, or co-champions should it finish tied with ASU."

So there you go.

USC can say it finished "first," if it beats UCLA. And the Bruins can call themselves "champions" even if it loses.

Woo! Just for the purposes for sheer comedy we are going to stick with calling Chianti Dan's program "champions"! GO BRUINS.