What an awesome game this season. I thought the Bruins were going to get abused, but they stepped to put the beat down on the Volunteers and shocked a whole lot of people. A very memorable game.

But let me take you to my most memorable UCLA v. Tennessee football game. I was there. It was ’94 I think. I was a Sophomore or Junior I believe and I was amazed at the hard core tennessee fans that came to watch the team. They chanted “overrated” towards the Bruin faithful. We respond with great maturity and chant “Inbred” multiple times. Good times.

This happened to be Peyton Manning’s 1st college game I believe. The two seniors ahead of him got knocked out. One was Colquitt I think and the other might have been Rockies’ star Todd Helton. Peyton got abused by UCLA and UCLA worked them over. But that’s not why it was a memorable game.

There was a streaker. Somewhere in the 3rd quarter a dude makes a break for the center of the Rose Bowl, clothes in hand. Nobody stopped him and after a couple awkward moments of silence for everybody, said streaker spiked his clothes and raised his hands in the air waving the fingers. In Bruin land this is the universal sign for “8 clap” so the entire student section raises their hands too and the streaker leads us in one of the most memorable and awkward rounds of the 8 clap I’ve ever seen and experienced. I confess I was right there with the mob on this one. He got a seriously loud ovation. Meanwhile the Tennessee Offense who was coming out of a huddle was standing there in shock.

A couple security guards began to lurk, particularly one. The streaker tried to put a move on him, but he got laid out. Quickly security had him face down and hog tied. The worst moment of the whole scenario was when they lifted him up face down, still naked, and gravity set in giving the crowd a makeshift sundial. The funniest moment was hearing a collective groan from the 80,000+ people in attendance. Then somebody ran up and threw a towel over him to put an end to the show.

The next day we were at breakfast and my buddy Jeremy was reading the paper. He asked me, “Do you want to know who that streaker was?” Turned out he was a friend of ours that we worked with at the campus coffee shop. Awesome. We were able to question him about it later and he said it was totally worth it except for getting kicked out of the ROTC program.

What a game. So Monday night was exhilarating for a many a reason, but it just might not have the staying power of that game over a decade ago.