If you detected a slight bias in the television analyst for UCLA’s first home football game of the season, he could be forgiven.
It was Brett Hundley, former Bruins star quarterback.
Hundley’s first game as a broadcaster happened to involve his alma mater back at his onetime home stadium on the Big Ten Network.
“Excited for this, excited more so for UCLA,” Hundley told the California Post on Saturday before the Bruins played San Diego State at the Rose Bowl, “and I just get to be a small part of it.”
Like a quarterback going through progressions, Hundley has moved on to calling games after doing a good amount of studio work in recent years. This is a way for the 33-year-old to stay involved with the game he loves.
“I still wanted to be around the game and talk about it and still use everything that I’ve gained in my years of playing football,” said Hundley, who spent parts of eight seasons in the NFL. “And for me, it was an opportunity of a lifetime getting a call from the Big Ten and having the opportunity now to talk football.”
Preparing to call a game is somewhat like getting ready to play in one.
“As a quarterback, you study the defense — you don’t care about the offense,” said Hundley, who worked the game Saturday alongside play-by-play announcer Wayne Randazzo. “Now you gotta know the defense, the offense, the coaches, the stories behind them. It’s a good amount of prep work, but it’s more fun because you get to really know the stories behind the players.”
A dozen years after he played his final game for the Bruins, Hundley remains the school’s all-time leader in multiple categories. He ranks No. 1 in single-season total offense (4,095) and completions (318), both attained in 2012.
That was the same season that Hundley helped the Bruins topple rival USC at the Rose Bowl, which he said remained his favorite memory as a player.
So, yeah, being back at his beloved stadium might have triggered a little bias.
“One of the things that I’ve got pinged on already by the Big Ten,” Hundley said, “is saying ‘we’ because I’m so used to [the concept of] UCLA and ‘we,’ so if you guys tune in today, I’ll probably be saying ‘we.’”
