UCLA football The UCLA football program narrowly defeated South Alabama on Saturday. But the locker room celebration after the game was wild.

While the UCLA Bruins football team was favored by more than two touchdowns on Saturday, they needed a last-second field goal to defeat South Alabama. With the possible exception of playoff games and big rivalries, the prevailing emotion is usually more relief than joy when a heavy favorite barely survives an upset bid. That was not the case for UCLA, though.

The sparse crowd at the Rose Bowl and overall lackluster performance from the Bruins greatly irritated Troy Aikman. But while a UCLA football legend wasn’t thrilled with what he saw, the current Bruins were ecstatic — at least based on their locker room celebration.

In a video posted by UCLA Football’s Director of Player Personnel, Ethan Young, the Bruins locker room after the game resembled something one might see after a championship-clinching victory.

The wild celebration was roundly criticized by college football fans, wondering why a Pac-12 team with a 3-0 record is this thrilled to defeat a program like South Alabama.

The less cynical takeaway here is that these are college kids and college kids having fun shouldn’t bother anyone. There’s some merit to that argument.

But this is a Power Five school. That should bring an expectation of a certain level of play. That’s not to say that the Bruins can never slip up and get into a tough game against a team like South Alabama. That happens. But beating them shouldn’t trigger such a huge reaction. If it does, the pending move to the Big Ten may produce some rough on-field moments.

[Ethan Young on Twitter]

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