The Bruins will not only face the Falcons on Saturday, but they will also face Mother Nature.
Saturday’s forecast calls for temperatures approaching 103 degrees Fahrenheit in Pasadena, with extreme heat warnings in place for most of the week. Fans, coaches and student-athletes will be scorching in the sun from start to finish for a UCLA football game with Bowling His Green scheduled to kick off at 11:30 a.m. at the Rose Bowl.
UCLA Athletics will allow fans to bring 32 oz bottles (factory sealed or empty) to games, and the stadium will be flushed and equipped with refueling, cooling and misting stations will be
Coach Chip Kelly had another idea for how to beat the heat, though the timeline is questionable.
“We will try to build the dome between now and then,” Kelly said Monday.
Redshirt senior offensive lineman John Gaines II heads into his fifth season opener with the Bruins and has been a part of the program since Kelly arrived in 2018.
Kelly has long emphasized sports science in scheduling practice and conditioning, which Gaines says has led to things like tracking hydration.
“Preparation starts now, it started months ago,” Gaines said. “Now that I’ve built those habits to the point where I’m taking care of myself and ready to go out on Saturday, I’m going to develop a habit of feeling better when game day comes.”
UCLA has been practicing with heats that have been heating up in recent weeks and has some insight into what Saturday will look like, but the weather at the Wasserman Football Center looks set to hit Pasadena over the weekend. has yet to fully mimic what is expected in
“We can’t manufacture it. We can’t just get a reflective mirror and heat it up a bit for today’s training session,” Kelly said. It means they have to play, so they will be in the same situation as us.”
The Bruins have a lot more to deal with than Saturday’s high temperatures, as MAC’s Bowling Green comes to town with a quarterback-centric offense and another upset.
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The Falcons, who are 7-22 under coach Scott Leffler, beat Minnesota on a road trip in Week 4 of the 2021 season. Given the general expectation that UCLA will be in the same 9-10 ballpark as this year, the upset is certainly not unprecedented.
Quarterback Matt McDonald, son of former USC quarterback Paul McDonald, will be central to basically everything the referee runs on that side of the ball on Saturday. , for 2,555 yards and 12 touchdowns in the air, and scored four more with his feet.
And with last season’s main rusher Terrion Stewart announcing earlier this week that he’s taking the season off, the sly McDonald will play an even bigger role in the Falcons’ game plan.
Edge rusher Beau Calvert said, “I think their quarterback does a great job of extending the play and using what he has.” He’s the type of guy and you have to make sure he doesn’t run away.”
McDonald’s counterpart, quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson, can’t aim for the same goal of pulling off an upset considering UCLA enters the game as a 25-point favorite.
Instead, Thompson Robinson said he’s ready to take the Bruins to the next level this season.
It started with a win over the Falcons on Saturday, and Thompson Robinson said he hopes it will end with the Bruins lifting the trophy by the end of the year.
“Yeah, we’re definitely pushing it,” Thompson Robinson said. “Our mindset and mission is to win it all this year and I think that’s the habit we adopt every day.”
UCLA and Bowling Green are scheduled to kick off at 11:30 am.
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