LOS ANGELES_UCLA could be on the verge of a catchy new cheer: the 4-8-clap.
A victory over Stanford on Saturday afternoon at the Rose Bowl wouldn't do much to salvage the Bruins' final record, but it would provide further evidence of the possibility of eventual salvation under coach Chip Kelly as his first season comes to a close.
The Bruins, 3-8 overall and 3-5 in the Pac-12 Conference, have already dispatched their archrival, USC. Now they get a chance to beat the team that's been a giant sequoia blocking their path to supremacy in the Pac-12 over the last decade.
Stanford (6-4, 4-3) has won 10 consecutive games in the series, including a soul-crushing triumph in the final minute at the Rose Bowl in 2016 after it had appeared that Bruins coach Jim Mora's efforts to remake his team in the model of the Cardinal just might work out.
The Cardinal were also the only Pac-12 member to go .500 against Kelly's teams while he was at Oregon, winning two of four games from 2009 to 2012, but the coach dismissed the notion of old results factoring into the way the Bruins might approach their season finale.
"We don't talk about history," Kelly said. "We're a forward-thinking operation, so what happened in the past doesn't mean anything to us. We're looking through the windshield, not through the rear-view mirror, so I don't care if they won 47 in a row. That really doesn't affect this team."
UCLA's record is largely a function of a young team playing a tough schedule while being ravaged by injuries that at one point left the Bruins with only 57 available scholarship players, nearly all of them underclassmen. Kelly noted a few weeks ago that his kickoff coverage team featured seven true freshmen and four walk-ons, with one of the walk-ons also being a freshman.
Kelly then made sure to add that he didn't rue the youth movement, considering it an opportunity for growth.
"Let's worry about our controllables and then try to be obsessed with improvement," Kelly said when asked about his approach this season amid all the losing. "That's what we all are, we're obsessed with improvement and can we be better than what we were yesterday."
Kelly's players have been insisting for many weeks now that they can feel the team's improvement, even if the results haven't showed it. That's one of the reasons the Bruins' 34-27 victory over USC was considered so significant. It provided tangible validation of the growth.
"To be able to go out there and execute and do what we do, what we've been doing all week in practice and show it on the field, show it to our fans, and show it to everybody that we're here, that we could still do this," UCLA linebacker Krys Barnes said, " ... it's good to see your hard work pay off."
Progress has been most evident in Kelly's specialty as the Bruins have averaged 419.3 yards of offense over the last seven games after averaging 312 yards over the first four. The defense had its finest hour against USC last week, holding the Trojans scoreless in the fourth quarter to enable a comeback, and the spotty special teams went the entire second half without a significant blunder.
UCLA could conceivably return every player on offense next season besides graduate transfer quarterback Wilton Speight, giving the Bruins the kind of continuity they sorely lacked in 2018.
But first they have a chance to win what Kelly has dubbed the California championship after having already beaten California and USC, though Fresno State might want to attach an asterisk to that title after having beaten the Bruins in September.
If nothing else, a victory over Stanford could portend triumphant seasons ahead.
"It would be huge, especially to finish off the season," Barnes said. "Finish it off with a win going into the offseason, then get ready to work."
