Spaulding Report: UCLA Football Preparing for the 12th Man

When the Bruins play away games against some of the lesser Pac-12 programs (I won’t mention any names), barely 40,000 fans may be in attendance. At Kyle Field on September 3rd, there will be almost 40,000 students alone. Officially called The 12th Man, Aggie students stand tall through the entire game and make Kyle Field one of the loudest stadiums in the country.

"They organize their cheer squad or their yell squad so they’ll get all of their student section going." Mora said on Thursday (Aggies don’t "cheer," they "yell," by the way). "They try to make you seasick, the way they do it. They actually practice the night before."

At midnight the night before a game, Yell Practice is held, led by the Yell Leaders, and up to 25,000 students, fans, and alumni regularly attend.

Though capacity at Kyle Field is officially listed at 102,733, somehow over 110,000 attended a game against Ole Miss in 2014 to set the SEC record for attendance.

"Hopefully we can start fast and keep the volume down," Kennedy Polamalu joked Friday after practice. "You watch the film of different opponents that have gone into their stadium. Some have been successful and some had some false starts and things like that. That’s all part of playing in a loud stadium."

A UCLA football squad hasn’t played in front of over 100,000 people since playing at Tennessee in 2009. Though, Brett Hundley led the Bruins back from being down by 18 to trounce Nebraska in front of 91,471 red-clad Cornhusker fans in 2013.

"We’ve been a good road team. We talk about it a lot. We try to create problems and distractions during practice so that we’re ready to go on gameday," Mora said.

Polamalu trusts the players will be excited rather than intimidated.

"What young man that’s grown up playing football doesn’t want to play in front of 100,00 people?"

To Prepare for A&M, Watch Game Film of... UCLA?

Tom Bradley is watching film of the Bruins to get prepared for Texas A&M.

"Obviously in a game like this there’ll be some different wrinkles, there’ll be the unscouted plays. So we’re just trying to get as organized as we can before we get out there. Hopefully, we’re ready for anything that comes up."

But also watching tape of Texas A&M.

"We don’t know their personnel, so we do watch film for personnel. We start to study their players, and who’s playing where, and anticipate what to expect."

And... Oklahoma?

"I’ve seen Trevor (Knight), he’s an excellent quarterback. He’s a fifth year guy, he’s been around, he’s been in big bowl games, he’s won big bowl games. (...) He’s a heck of a football player."

Tired Legs

The team will have the weekend off before game prep officially begins on Monday.

"We’ve got some tired legs, we’ve got some guys with bumps and bruises, so we need some time right now to get healed up." Bradley said.

Takkarist McKinley and Jacob Tuioti-Mariner didn’t fully participate, but were at practice. Not much else was reported injury-wise.

See more from Kennedy Polamalu and Tom Bradley after practice on Friday below. Big thanks to Thuc Nhi Nguyen of the LA Daily News for the videos!

Offensive Coordinator Kennedy Polamalu:

Defensive Coordinator Tom Bradley:

GO BRUINS.