A few days after writing a column comparing Rick Neuheisel to the McDonald’s McRib, I decided it was time to expand my culinary and journalistic horizons.
So it was that I found myself in an establishment where sport and sandwich truly coalesce.
This is hallowed ground now, like stepping into Yankee Stadium or Lambeau Field.
“Welcome to Subway!” I hear as I enter.
The internationally pervasive sandwich chain has commercials that feature, among others, Michael Phelps, Laila Ali and Blake Griffin. Subway has had a long-standing relationship with elite athletes.
Today we find ourselves near the end of the restaurant’s most brilliant promotion, which overlaps for about a week with the McRib campaign. “Anytober” means that you can get any Subway foot-long for $5 for the entire month of October. It’s a game-changer.
Apart from being a brilliant campaign, Anytober is also a perfect way to classify the last month of UCLA football, which began on Oct. 1 with a blowout loss to Stanford and will end this weekend when the Bruins host California in a landmark game for the program.
As we’ve seen in the last four weeks ““ as is the case going into the matchup with the Bears ““ anything can happen.
UCLA can play well and still get blasted by Stanford in a game that showed how far the Bruins need to go.
Richard Brehaut can finally win the endless quarterback battle, only to go down with a broken leg against Washington State.
Kevin Prince ““ much-maligned, oft-injured ““ can enter the game to a chorus of boos and promptly lead his team to a victory (over a Washington State program that has up until this month been essentially a guaranteed victory the last few seasons).
And then all hell can break loose on a Thursday night on ESPN in the desert. In one of UCLA’s most memorable games in a while ““ think “Wow, I just saw a train wreck” memorable ““ the Bruins not only got dusted by a 1-5 Arizona team, but also engaged in a benches-clearing brawl and were humiliated in every facet.
Hey, anything can happen.
That brings us to the matchup with Cal, a game that could (or should) have epic consequences. UCLA needs to rationalize its fans paying at least $20 for a ticket to see “five, five-dollar, five-dollar footballlll.” The quality of play needs to be higher, or the program runs the risk of losing any of the buzz that still surrounds it.
These are the two most enigmatic teams in the conference. We all know about UCLA’s issues, but Cal hasn’t exactly been a model of consistency itself. The Bears handled Utah with ease in their most recent game, but that came on the heels of consecutive Thursday night thrashings at the hands of Oregon and USC.
Let’s just be glad this game isn’t being played on a Thursday. Neither team would have a chance of winning.
A UCLA win would keep hope alive for at least another week. As of Thursday afternoon, Cal was favored by around five points depending on which line you’re looking at. But it’d be hard to call this one an upset regardless of who wins, given the unpredictability of the two programs. This is Anytober after all.
A win could preserve some semblance of order in the program. UCLA and Cal tend to be mirror images of each other, and not just because they are sister institutions. The home team tends to win most of the time in this rivalry, and the Bruins would be well-served to maintain that trend.
A loss to Cal would be disastrous, like ordering a Meatball Marinara only to find that Subway’s out of meatballs. There’s really no hope after that. The Bruins would have a chance of winning at Utah and against Colorado, but games against Arizona State and USC are huge long shots. See ya, bowl-eligibility.
Perhaps the most significant implication involves the status of Neuheisel, whose seat is jalapeno-hot at this point. It’s hard to imagine justifying keeping Neuheisel around any longer if UCLA lays another egg against Cal. He absolutely HAS to pull something out of his bag of tricks that will get his team to bounce back after the showing against Arizona.
The coach is more than a figurehead of the program. He needs to be a leader in a time of need, he needs to be a strategist, he certainly needs to be a teacher. And when teachers become ineffective, there’s only one logical course of action, as I’ve discovered here in this sandwich oasis: find a sub.
If you want to be the Sweet Onion to his Chicken Teriyaki, email Eshoff at [email protected].