UCLA-Bowling Green Make Rose Bowl History

And it wasn’t the good kind of history.

UCLA opened its season on Saturday afternoon at the Rose Bowl against one of the worst teams in the MAC, Bowling Green.

Attendance for UCLA games has dwindled in recent years as the team’s play has waffled. When taking the mediocrity of UCLA into account, coupled with the quality of the opponent for the opener, attendance was expected to be sparse.

Attendance in fact, was so bad for UCLA’s 42–17 victory on Saturday that it set a Rose Bowl record, according to Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times. Only 27,143 fans attended Saturday’s win for the Bruins.

UCLA is expected to once again be a middle-of-the-road team in the Pac-12 in 2022. The Bruins return veteran quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson and running back Zach Charbonnet. 

Thompson-Robinson threw for 298 yards and two scores on Saturday afternoon, while also rushing for 87 yards and two more touchdowns. Charbonnet carried the ball 21 times for 111 yards and a touchdown in the blowout win.

Hopefully more fans will be in attendance for the better portion of the schedule when UCLA gets to conference play.