Bruins focused on Cal and trying to avoid USC hangover
The notifications kept Dorian Thompson-Robinson’s phone buzzing for hours. Friends and family celebrated how he hurdled a USC defender while scoring a touchdown and chuckled at how he signed a mid-game autograph. Fans retweeted and liked the highlights and tagged the dynamic quarterback, and by Monday, Thompson-Robinson’s phone was “pretty blown up.”
But with another game approaching, he’s not wasting precious time scrolling through each message.
“I’ll pick up all the newspapers and get all the stuff from my mom later,” Thompson-Robinson said Monday, “but I gotta focus on Cal.”
Flying high after a 62-33 thrashing of crosstown rival USC, the Bruins are guarding against a letdown against California. The Bears are coming off their own rivalry rout as they
stunned Stanford in a 41-11 victory Saturday. Cal, whose season was upended by COVID-19 protocols that postponed one game, has won three of its last four games.
The threat of a rivalry hangover is real.
Since the conference expanded in 2011 and often forced UCLA and USC to meet on the second-to-last week of the season, the Bruins
are 1-6 in regular-season games after playing the Trojans. The sole victory came over Cal in 2017 on a last-second field goal that earned UCLA bowl eligibility after former coach Jim Mora was fired.
Coach Chip Kelly was unmoved by lighthearted banter about a much-hyped UCLA men’s basketball game against Gonzaga and the fate of the Victory Bell trophy. He said he didn’t even realize Mick Cronin was leading the Bruins in a Final Four rematch with the Bulldogs on Tuesday night. Kelly had no idea where the bell was Monday after the Bruins reclaimed the rivalry trophy.
“Our focus is 100% on playing Cal,” Kelly said. “If you want to know anything about Cal, just watch what they did in the Stanford game. It was impressive.”
Cal rolled up 636 total yards, its highest total against Stanford, and rushed for 352 yards, its first 300-yard rushing game since 2018.
While the Bruins (7-4, 5-3 Pac-12) already can rejoice in their best season of the Kelly era, the Bears (4-6, 3-4) still need to win each of their last two games to secure bowl eligibility.
A fresh coat of paint
To the victor go the spoils. For UCLA, that means taking back the Victory Bell, the trophy at stake in the annual crosstown rivalry. The nearly 300-pound bell was in UCLA’s Hall of Fame on Monday morning but hadn’t yet received its fresh coat of blue paint. A UCLA athletics spokesperson said the makeover would take place Monday afternoon. When UCLA last had the bell in 2018-19, it was displayed in the lobby of the Wasserman Football Center.
Etc.
Although Kelly said Brittain Brown was close to playing Saturday, the running back was limited to sideline conditioning during Monday’s practice. Brown missed the USC game with an undisclosed injury. Linebacker Ale Kaho was seen working in the weight room Monday, and fellow linebacker Jordan Genmark Heath was practicing with a cast on his right hand.