Players and Coaches of the UCLA Football Team:

We, here at BruinsNation, would like to take a moment to commend you on an excellent 8-2 start to your football season. You have played like champs all season and deserve our praise and thanks.

This coming Saturday, you will face one of the tougher tests of the season as you play the U$C Trojans. Rest assured, that every member of Bruins Nation will be cheering you on to victory. We don't need to tell you that a lot of Bruin fans will only look at the results of the game against the Trojans as the only one that matters (at least until next week). Others like to say that we could be 1-11, but, if that one win comes against the Trojans, it is a good season.

We know that you guys understand that winning next Saturday is a matter of Bruin Pride.

Next Saturday, the Trojans will come from across town trying to beat us on our field. They had the audacity to list the game against us on the schedule as a home game.

No one should EVER come to our field...our home stadium...the world-famous Rose Bowl and defeat our football team....ESPECIALLY the Trojans.

As much as Bruin fans would prefer to keep every Trojan at home besides their football team, realistically there will be lots of Trojan fans at the game too.

In the past at the Rose Bowl and at other games, the drum major of the U$C "Spirit of Troy" Marching Band (Ugh...I hate even writing those words.) has practiced a tradition of taking his sword a thrusting it into the turf at midfield.

As true Bruin fans, we find this action to be particularly disrespectful to our beloved University -- UCLA -- so much so that Athletic Director Dan Guerrero asked the Pac-12 conference to remove a clip of their drum major performing this action at the Rose Bowl. Thankfully, the Conference complied.

Last week, many Bruin fans contacted the Athletic Department to ask Mr. Guerrero to work with Mr. Haden at U$C to prevent this from happening next Saturday. As of the date of this writing, the best response any alum or fan has received from our Athletic Department has been that "we will not be able to respond to your questions."

We find this response to be unacceptable and regret that we must find another way to keep the Trojans from insulting every member of the greater Bruin family.

For the last week, we have pondered potential responses to the Trojans' disrepect here.

We would prefer to not have to ask our football team to defend our logo. We would prefer to have our Spirit Squad and the UCLA Band do it. We would even welcoming allowing Den members special field access for pre-game ceremonies for the specific purpose of defending our logo.

We would even be willing to do it ourselves if the consequences would not include being arrested and removed from the game for entering the field of play.

So, we are turning to the guys who make up the bulk of individuals who have field access to ask you to find a group of 5 to 10 guys to defend our logo. They can be guys who are redshirting or not playing due to injury. They could even be reserves who will not see any game action. While it doesn't really matter who it is, we would prefer it interfere with pre-game preparation as little as possible. We do not want it to be a distraction.

But, we want our Bruin Pride defended. We want the Trojans to understand that it is not OK to come into OUR HOUSE and treat it with disrepect and without class.

We will understand if this simply isn't possible due to the need to focus on the game because the game is ultimately the most important thing. After all, a victory on Saturday will earn you our second consecutive Pac-12 South championship. After the season you have put together, you guys have earned that opportunity and need to beat the Trojans to seal the deal.

We wanted to share our thoughts and feelings about the Trojans and their shenanigans with the hope that, since you guys may be on the field when they do it, you may be able to stop it the way that George Teague stopped Terrell Owens when he celebrated on the Cowboys logo on September 24, 2000 (go to the 0:58 mark).

Best of luck with the rest of the season. We look forward to watching you guys next week and in the years to come.

And, of course, BEAT '$C!

Sincerely,
Bruins Nation