UCD at the Emerald Bowl

The Emerald Bowl kicks off in about six hours from AT&T Park on ESPN, pitting UCLA against Florida State. It's one of the few exciting non-BCS match-ups just because of the caliber of programs playing each other, even if both struggled mightily this year. A quick scan of the Bruins roster shows that there are three former Aggies on the team. Only one, DT Stephen Urrutia, is on the trip with the Bruins. Two others, DE Thomas Blake and LB Joshua Edwards, are sitting out because of NCAA transfer rules.

Urrutia was an offensive lineman at UCD and appears to have switched sides. He has recorded no official stats this year. Blake and Edwards are two players that made immediate contributions as redshirt freshmen before deciding to try their skills at the Bowl Subdivision level. UCLA coach Karl Dorrell said that both Edwards and Blake made impressions as practice players this year. He said he's interested to see just how much they contribute next year.

"We watched them when they were at Davis, they were good players there," Dorrell told me at the Emerald Bowl press conference on Saturday. "There's a lot of talented players at all levels in football. That natural thought is that when you're playing a smaller school that your level football isn't as good as most. But Davis proved (that isn't true) that a year ago by beating Stanford. They have some really good players. We were really fortunate to have those two join us."

There are two more connections. UCLA longsnapper Riley Jondle is the older brother of Jake Jondle, the freshman that handled deep snaps for the Aggies this year. Also radio color man Doug Kelly is the Emerald Bowl's media services manager.