Here it is. The final AGP of the season. I realize there are a lot of new faces here to the blog by way of the Oregon post that went viral. Welcome, you will catch on quickly (or just read back and enjoy the season in reverse like you ride some wild time machine bronco from the future).

The Ducks continue to pepper the comment thread with hate comments, so I know the bearfighter has succeeded in his mission. Nothing screams “upset” like screaming that you are “not upset” like 100 hours after the game. If you are tired of Angry Birds, fucking Fruit Ninja or whatever the hell else you do on your iOS or desktop, I recommend commenting on that Oregon post and watching the ducks squirm.

Remember, slice the duck fat and place in a scolding hot pan, skin side down so the skin is crispy and you don’t take shit from a judge on Chopped. They’re ruthless.

I write to you on the day before Thanksgiving, a special day for the bearfighter where I travel to the desert where my wife is from, run miles into a canyon flooded with mountain runoff and then return home to smoke cigars, eat live lobsters because it’s funny and then if I haven’t passed out from all the bourbon, I eat some turkey and chase a javelina through the streets.

That said, I pop my bottle of Dom Ruinart and drink from the bottle as I present you your final AGP for 2011.

This week, we play the bastion of all that is wrong with being a man. The UCLA Bruins, our rivals from the outdoor shopping mall known as Westwood, have decayed into some freakish creature that crawled out of a vat of battery acid and are dancing around a party with their skin melting off.

I don’t think they have any idea how far they have fallen. I don’t think they understand the loser mentality they have developed. Do you realize that even if they win this game, nothing will change? Not with their AD and head coach. Think Dorrell. That win didn’t do anything. Systematic changes are needed and I don’t know if it’s possible, even with a shocking upset win on Saturday.

Some Bruins who will for some reason read this are currently preparing to disagree, but the smart Bruin fans I know (yes, there are some) are actually going to completely agree with every damn word I am about to say and while I would gladly reward them with scotch in a friendly cross-town salute, it won’t change the fact that this will be my most arrogant victory of all time.

UCLA is going to take their lumps right now and the wise ones will print it out and tape it to Dan Guerrero’s office door. Smart and loyal baby bears out there, you know I am true. Let’s first set the stage.

We want you to be better. That year you beat us and made us win a Rose Bowl instead of a National Title, I thought there was a chance this was going to get special again (and not special like parking in handicapped spots, Cade McNoun, who may be dead?). It didn’t happen. I even thought for a minute Neuhisuseslafl was going to bring some of that “I-gamble-and-probably-steal-underwear-from-Victoria’s Secret type swag. He didn’t. UCLA ruined him.

It’s all a part of what has become a delusional society over there in Westwood. For years, UCLA students’ response to our football superiority was that they were ranked better in academics and were better in basketball. I don’t care much about basketball, but I respect their rich history of winning (that they have abandoned and moved into the Sports Arena, which I refer to as our sloppy seconds).

On the academic front, for two years running, the same US News and World Report rankings they have long held over our head have flipped. USC with it’s monster endowment (we are well endowed) and increasingly smart and diverse student body has surpassed them and given the state of public education and funding in California, if you had to bet 100K on which school is in better shape, where would you put it?

All of that said, we work among Bruins and it is a fine university filled with “nice guys” and “nice girls” who don’t like to look you in the eyes when we talk football, which is what it is time to do, because during the fall, this is a football blog. You ever listen to a UCLA game on the radio or watch it on television? You ever listen to the way John Ireland talks? It’s this soccer-dad, wishy-washy, I bet this year we can do it attitude that makes me cringe so much I get sad I have to share the Lakers and Dodgers with these people. Pete Arbogast sounds like he just made you a million dollars and stole it when USC gets in the endzone. It’s like he scored… “TOUCHDOWN USC, Robert Woods in the corner of the endzone–how do you do?”

That is some hardcore Keith Jackson, I’ll have an old fashioned right there.

Seriously, listen to UCLA. They sound excited to be there. So let’s get real. UCLA with a win can actually go to the Rose Bowl. They are 6-5, barely bowl eligible. Thanks to us not being allowed to play in the Championship game because Larry Scott and Mark Emmert killed a stripper in Reno together and have a bond of undying brotherhood that prevents Larry from making sense.

UCLA trying to spin their 6-5 season into their “closing of the gap” is hilarious. Slick Rick is trying to say that the fact UCLA through mathematical, systematic and social failure is able to possibly play in a title game somehow means that they are “back” to whatever that was to begin with. If you think I am overstating his incredible stretch of the imagination (which is just to save his job), here’s his actual quote:

“We’ve got a chance to win the championship, that’s closing the gap. We didn’t have that chance in years past.”

Let me break it down like only the Bearfighter can. UCLA boasting about playing in a Pac 12 Championship with at 6-5 record and USC ineligible is like being the ugly kid who takes his hot sister to prom and bragging about how his date is crazy attractive. The point is, you can buy it a corsage, you can get it drunk in a limo, but it’s impossible for you to sleep with it.

None of this will matter of course if UCLA loses this game by 8 touchdowns.

Rick continued:

“We’re much closer to them then we were when I first got here. I don’t know that it’s all the way done, we’ll talk after the ball game.”

Are you much closer, Rick? When you got here, you had beaten us like a year before they canned Karl. You haven’t beaten us. Actually, the gap has widened.

USC was sanctioned. Unfairly sanctioned. Unfairly in that Penn State has child rape going on in the showers, Oregon/LSU have both been questioned about paying shady recruiting services, half of Miami’s players over the last decade have done cocaine on a sex yacht with a booster who had sideline access, Ohio State hid information about benefits from the NCAA and I am pretty sure Cam Newton took money from no less than three SEC schools (Auburn, Florida and MSU) and NONE of them got what USC got for Reggie Bush taking money from an ex-con who had no relationship with the school.

All of that and you have not closed the gap at all. USC has had top 5 recruiting classes and sent a grip of kids to the NFL. Currently, they are a top ten team and they have no bowl to play for.

Rick, blow a line or something, you are delusional. Even if you win, the gap isn’t closing. Look at the lifetime series. You need to win for 15 straight years and THEN talk about the gap closing. Actually, the gap closing is the opportunity for you to stay coaching at UCLA.

With all of this going on, with a chance to win the Pac 12 South’s bid, you’d think Rick and Dan would be hyper focused on the game. Instead, they are hyping up UCLA’s new secret uniforms. Before I explain how stupid this is, let’s just call them out for bastardizing tradition. Uncle Pete brought back the color to the rivalry with both teams wearing their home jerseys. Awesome. So awesome, the NCAA actually changed a rule to not require a forfeited timeout in that scenario.

While Rick pretended to care about tradition while secretly dreaming of putting on their new, definitely hideous uniforms, he said this:

“No one’s told me anything,” he said. “We’re blue and gold as far as I know. I’ve heard the rumor, but I have no indication of that. … I love the home uniforms. I think it’s one of the classic games in college football.”

Right. What you are saying is you want to somehow use the shock of SC seeing new UCLA jerseys to demoralize the Trojans. This is just as dumb as my previous analogies. These rumored “all-white” jerseys will go down as the biggest joke in history because it will make it wildly obvious from all the Cardinal smudge marks and dirt stains exactly how USC beat them to death on television.

Also, Rick. It’s powder blue.

That said, some of the players were soooooper excited about these new jerseys that will definitively turn the tide, just like how we all were taught in history how the South almost won the Civil War when they showed up at Gettysburg in their alternate “all-olive” uniforms.

Junior CB Aaron Hester had this Project Runway assessment:

“It would give us that extra confidence. You look good, you feel good, you play good. A lot of people around the country think our uniforms look good now but having something different, like an alternate would be nice. I think this is the right time to bring them out.”

Are they worried about a USC team that never gave up the lead on the road in Oregon or Heidi Klum showing up and saying “auf wiedersehen”?

Nike and Adidas act like a drunk hair stylist in Brooklyn when a school lets them mess with their gear. Did anyone see Michigan’s alternate this year?

Or ND’s new helmet?

I mean, I am just praying that USC doesn’t mess with their jersey, but even if we did, at least we didn’t leak an article to ESPN and take interviews about it. Somehow, I think we’re focused on how to distribute the TDs.

Look. Your QB’s name is Prince and he plays about as well as the artist formerly known as that. Your back-up’s last name sounds like a French cheese that is unpasteurized (it’s Brehaut, I think). That will only be mildly funny as I am eating charcuterie during the game with French cheese and I’ll buy that salame that has the white rind in honor of your new ugly jerseys and think of how for years and years, you’ve been meat.

There’s only one man who can wear all white and make miracles happen. Get used to his majestic face because unlike Rick, he ain’t going anywhere.

This may be Barkley’s last bear hunt and he is 5-0 against teams named after bears. I can teach him no more. I will make no case for him to stay until after the season, but may I implore you Arrogant Nation to enjoy this game in case it is his last. Win (probably), Lose (unlikely) or Draw (not possible), he has been a pleasure to watch. We’ll worry about what’s next after we are all fat from bear tacos.

This marks a sad day for me. This is effectively the end of the sanctions era. Yes, we have scholarship restrictions, but the media will make that a footnote. It doesn’t carry the bravado of the bowl ban. So I recommend you wear your gear to the game and celebrate. Arrogant Nation will live on, but this will be our last game in this mindset.

A win and we win the Pac 12 South and Larry Scott looks like a moron. A win and despite everything, we had a 10 win season. A win and I can write my final recap of the year, my Barkley post and mosey off into the holidays and do what we all do in that time period: watch Oregon lose a bowl game.

UCLA, bring your best. Make this matter for once. You are playing for a lot and I think we’d all appreciate some help in making this a rivalry. Hang this in your locker room if you need to. You’ve given us plenty of bulletin board material over the years from Rick’s hilarious “football monopoly fail” to his recent “gap closing” comments. You need to win more than once a decade to close a gap. You get your chance Saturday.

UCLA fans know what I am about to say is true. Dan and Rick can’t turn the tide. Maybe someone else can. A win will just save their jobs and hurt UCLA in the long run. It won’t bring the recruits. It won’t change much at all. It will just re-solidify a foundation most Bruins were hoping would crumble.

In NFL terms, it’s kind of how Tebow is fucking the Broncos out of getting Andrew Luck.

I just hope we are the good arrogant, not the sleeping on the field arrogant. Every Trojan reading this, last week means nothing if we don’t absolutely trash UCLA like the lower-ranked-in-football-and-academics school they are.

(sshhhhhh, don’t tell them that if they rep the South at 6-5, they will probably just get made fun of and Dan Guerrero will build a statue to celebrate or something).

PREDICTION

USC: However many touchdowns we feel like.

UCLA: However many touchdowns we let them score (here comes the pistol offense!)

KIFF’S OUTFIT

All white to blend in with UCLA. Visor glowing in the sun.

IMPORTANT UPDATE.

The LFK store closes on Friday. We are retiring Bowls are for Salads and You Can’t Sanction the Endzone. This is your LAST CHANCE to buy them. I’d do it if you want a piece of Arrogant Nation history.

FRIDAY IS THE END OF THE STORE FOR 2011. IT WILL BE BACK IN 2012 WITH LFK, Arrogant Nation, and some new stuff.

That is all. I will see you on the battlefield this weekend.

Knee deep in bear meat,

The Bearfighter

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