Hot dog
Arizona and UCLA fans have one thing in common - a love of Sonoran hot dogs.
Walking through the Rose Bowl parking lot, we spotted dozens of vendors selling $5 bacon-wrapped hot dogs out of pushcarts. Being far from Sonora, however, sellers referred to them simply as "bacon-wrapped hot dogs."
They made an appearance during the game, too, in a mock-political ad for Farmer John hot dogs. Fans were encouraged to vote for the bacon-wrapped hot dog as the "official hot dog of Los Angeles."
No A
Paul Vassallo might have been the Arizona Wildcats' most important defensive player Saturday, leading the team with seven tackles, recording one tackle for loss and breaking up one pass.
Maybe next week, his name will be spelled correctly.
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An honest mistake, we assume, gave the linebacker a jersey that read VASSLLO.
"I didn't even notice it when I put my pads on," the junior said. "A couple of teammates on the way out told me it was spelled wrong."
Maybe the extra A was on his helmet.
The big number: Â 50 percent
Mike Stoops' overall winning percentage at Arizona - 40-40 - after Saturday's win.
Yap
The Wildcats' fake punt in the fourth quarter drew disgusted groans from UCLA fans - and a few from the players, too.
Minutes after the deception, the UA's punt team took the field again. But the Cats ran the play clock to zero to try to move the ball from the 35 to the 40, which would give Keenyn Crier more room to punt.
The Bruins, while waiting for the play clock to expire, told the Wildcats what they thought of the fake.
"When we took the delay the next time, a couple of guys were giving me crap for it," said Jake Fischer, the upback who ran the direct snap for 29 yards. "It was fun, though."
Quotable
"I'm down after every game. It's excruciating. There's no other way to say it."
UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel, on losing to Arizona
LA boy
Despite growing up in nearby Corona, Matt Scott wasn't intimidated or awed by the Rose Bowl, considered by many to be the college game's greatest stadium.
"Honestly, I didn't really watch too much college football when I was little," he said. "I couldn't really care less. I was more baseball when I was younger. But I evolved, you could say."
He said it was "cool to play against" the area players on UCLA who he knew growing up. It was good to see his family, too. About 15 or 20 family members made the trip to Pasadena, he said.
"It's real cool to come back home to where you're from," he said. "A lot of people come out to see you."
Literally, it was a nice day.
"You can't get much better than 'Cali' weather," he said.
Bowlin'
Remember when being bowl-eligible was a big deal?
Saturday afternoon, the UA athletic ticket office e-mailed members of the Wildcat Club, telling them that bowl ticket requests were available.
Ticket priority to a bowl game, whichever it is, is available based on a points system. The priority points system is based on donations.
Ticket requests are available for club members now, although they are subject to availability.
Another big number:Â 4
Straight wins by the UA against UCLA, narrowing the series. UCLA still leads 19-14-2.
The big number
53,408 -Â Saturday's attendance, the lowest of the season for UCLA and below its average of 57,803
Meet 'n' greet
Greg Byrne spent the weekend with some of the Arizona Wildcats' most famous athletes.
On Friday morning, the UA athletic director ate breakfast with Trevor Hoffman, major-league baseball's all-time saves leader and a former Wildcats shortstop, in Del Mar, Calif.
Hoffman is a health-food nut, so Byrne joked he had a healthy breakfast, too.
"Great guy," he said. "It was great just getting to know him. You're always trying to spend as much time as you can getting to know alums, and that includes our former student-athletes."
Byrne then met UA basketball legend Steve Kerr at a country club. During a half-hour-long meeting, Kerr taped a new segment for the Wildcats' basketball intro video. Byrne refused to give details of the new clip.
And shortly after halftime, Byrne talked with Kenny Lofton, the former UA baseball and basketball player who made more than $60 million in the majors.
Wooden
Trying to escape freeway congestion and tourist traps, we wandered to UCLA's campus Friday afternoon.
Our goal - other than checking the progress of Pauley Pavilion and grabbing a monstrous submarine sandwich - was to find John Wooden's old living room.
This week, UCLA's Hall of Fame unveiled one of the coolest athletic museum exhibits we've ever seen. It recreated John Wooden's den, piece by piece, picking up his recliner, television and bookcases full of UCLA knickknacks and putting it behind panes of glass.
Wooden's family donated the objects to UCLA, and some others to the Smithsonian.
The former UCLA coach lived in a condo in nearby Encino from 1972 until his death at 99 in June. There, he often hosted UCLA coaches and players. He would have turned 100 earlier this month.
Our favorite parts of the exhibit: the Western movies on loop on his television, letters from American presidents on the wall and photos of his championship teams arranged in a pyramid on the wall.
Mackovic!
Arizona's least popular football coach ever appeared on ESPN's "College GameDay" on Saturday.
Well, his name did.
A Texas fan held a sign behind the announcers on USC's campus directed to ESPN's Lou Holtz, asking, "Dr. Lou, Who will replace Mack-ovic Brown?"
The fan was comparing current coach Mack Brown (132-30 at Texas going into Saturday) to Mackovic, who went went 41-28-2 with the Longhorns from 1992 to 1997. Mackovic went 10-18 at Arizona from 2001 to 2003.
Rubbing it in?
It was no coincidence that Saturday was the day UCLA decided to honor its defending national championship softball team.
In the first quarter, the Bruins introduced star Megan Langenfeld and her teammates in the north end zone. They smiled and waved to the camera.
They must have looked familiar to UA fans - it was Langenfeld, and her Game 1 walk-off home run, that tortured the Cats in a two-game sweep of the Women's College World Series finals.
Halloween
One day before Halloween, the UCLA band got in the spooky spirit.
At halftime, the band performed songs with each member dressed in costume. We spotted, among others, an M&M, Cookie Monster and Tigger. The band played "Thriller" and the theme from "Ghostbusters," the latter while guys dressed in Ghostbusters costumes, with backpacks included, chased members dressed as spirits.
Joe Bruin, UCLA's mascot, wore a witch's hat.
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