Welcome back everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve made a post (despite saying I was going to Tom Brady myself out of retirement almost a year ago). But the mention of Tom Brady might have you thinking some combination of the following:

1. “You weren’t the GOAT of the blog world, probably not even the GOAT of something super specific, like the satirical USC football blog world.”
2. “Your wife didn’t leave you”
3. “Your blog posts coming out of retirement didn’t suck”

If you were thinking number one, thanks, but you’re still reading, so I won. If you were thinking number three, thanks, you’re too kind. If you’re thinking number 2, I would like you inform you that I dated a Bruin during this absentee time and it went about as well as you would expect—just a heartbreaker like any other Bruin (enough to dedicate an entire trash talk post about UCLA)¹. Leaving retirement and the woman leaving me was enough for me to draw the Tom Brady parallel. Sure, it was a bit forced, but it’s hard to find good content sometimes…however—CommBro Breaker—sometimes, content is so good, it pretty much writes itself.

It’s rivalry week, and we’re all just looking for a good excuse to talk trash. I know many of us are in search of good tidbits to zing ’em with. I’ve given you the comprehensive history of the eight clap in the past, and while I can rest on those laurels for the rest of my life, I will provide you with some quality quips at the expense of the Bruins.

We look back more than a century ago, to the founding of the UCLA football team. The University of California decided that UCLA should field a football team in their first year as a school in 1919. As with most teams, you play who you can when you first form a team. For example, when USC began playing football in 1888, they tussled with the Alliance Athletic Club twice, finishing 2-0 that season. The start of UCLA’s season began with three consecutive games against high schools. They lost to them all. That’s right—their program began with three consecutive losses to high schools…including a 0-74 loss against Manual Arts High School. While that seems like it could be a candidate for most points allowed by a UCLA team, USC actually beat them 76-0 back in 1929. It would’ve been comical if a high school or USC held that record to this day, but no, it was Whittier dropping 103 points on them in 1920. That will be a tough one to beat. For reference, USC has never allowed more than 62 points in a game, despite having 30ish more years of football history. We’re getting distracted though…

Back to that first UCLA season, they also ^{Misleading Stat of the Week} lost against every opponent they played that year. As the fact-checkers I hope you all are, seeing that 2-6 record might have you ready to burn me at the stake, but look at those two wins they had: Occidental freshman and LA JC (who later took over UCLA’s second campus). Those poor Bruins ended up losing to those two teams on their second meeting that season making my statement true in the most technical sense. Oops, did I say Bruins? Back then, they were actually called the Cubs—the Southern Branch Cubs. In those days, USC Trojans would call them “the twigs.” Those two lone wins did set a precedent though. The next two head coaches would also only win two games before leaving the position. That’s right, the first three UCLA Southern Branch head coaches each only won two games each and left with losing records. With that kind of start, it’s amazing they’ve survived this long.

This concludes the trash talk post. Thanks for reading and see you next time…whenever the heck that is.

¹ Did I really just put footnotes into a blog post? Yes, but only in the interest of being fair and honest (like all my blog posts *wink wink*). While I talked trash all in good fun, the poor Bruin girl I was referencing was actually a really great person, but it wouldn’t have worked out. I’m just trying to make humorous content and sometimes you have to force the narrative to fit.