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As UCLA football fans stared with disbelief at the news that a 7-4 Bruin team had declined to play in the smurf-turfed Humanitarian Bowl, you could hear a query from Dickson to Maloney’s:

What the Hell Just Happened Here?

Yes, folks, the WTHJHH? phenomenon can strike anyone, anywhere, anytime. Often accompanied by a bewildered look of incomprehension (see cartoon), WTHJHH? plays no favorites. It has no friends.

And last season, it culminated in “I-can’t-believe-we-lost-to (expletive-used-in-adverb-form) USC-again-and-aren’t-even-going-to-a-bowl-game” fury.

Five weeks was all it took for WTHJHH? to dismantle a 6-0 record and No. 4 national ranking into a lackluster 7-4, prompting fans to ask for a kindergarten kickball-style “do-over.”

If you weren’t there for the self-combustible carnage, consider yourself blessed. But to get the idea, imagine you’re gliding toward your significant other, dozen roses in your left hand and cubic zirconia (we are, after all, college students) in your right.

As you fall to one knee and utter the words you had pored over for days, she stops you.

Not only is she not interested in getting married, but she’s not particularly interested in in seeing you ever again. Talk about an all-time bad read on your part.

And then it sets in: “One minute, I was planning on spending the rest of my life with this person, and now I need to ask for my Third Eye Blind CD back. WTHJHH?”

But I digress. One of the harshest aspects of WTHJHH? is that it can hit the haves and the have-nots with equal force. For just as we all looked for answers when the Bruins mailed in a 27-0 loss to USC, the kids up at Washington State were awfully happy with their 10-2 record, especially after the Cougs had been picked to finish dead last in the conference.

That’s right, 10th. And where did they finish?

Second. As if turning down a majestic winter week in Boise wasn’t deflating enough for UCLA fans, Washington freaking State was looking down on them from one floor below the Pac-10 penthouse.

So you see, WTHJHH? is something of a double-edged sword. Its powers can turn kings into jesters, but it can also do the opposite.

This could be great news.

The self-destruction, NCAA peccadilloes, arrests, et cetera of 2001 left such bitterness in the mouths of journalists that the Bruins were picked to finish sixth in the Pac-10.

Expectations haven’t bottomed out, but they’re definitely somewhere near the inner core, boiling in igneous magma.

Common sense would dictate that these writers are on to something. But the Pac-10 is a lot like an argument with that significant other that trampled your heart 47 lines ago.

Common sense doesn’t seem to prevail. In fact, it sounds a lot like Mike Tyson critiquing Keynesian economic theory.

So mark my words (he declares as if he is Lee Corso talking about Florida State on a Saturday morning): a team picked lower than fourth in the Pac-10 will put together a run for the Rose Bowl. It might not make it all the way, but it will trigger WTHJHH? somewhere.

In 1993, UCLA was picked sixth and won it. The next year Oregon was tabbed eighth and won it. Three years ago, Stanford was eighth and ended up in first.

In the Pac-10, WTHJHH? has become one of life’s truths, like how your dad will always be diametrically worse than you at high-fives.

Looking at the conference schedule, it shows only one truly vicious road game, at Washington Nov. 2. Otherwise (and I am obviously the first sportswriter ever to say this) anything can happen.

Though his approval rating might be somewhere near that of a Latin American dictator, Cory Paus is still one of the best passers in the Pac-10 when he’s healthy. He’ll have four of five starters on the offensive line back to make sure he stays that way.

The receiving corps and secondary are as good as it gets in the conference. But most of all, no clear-cut hegemon exists this year. While it would be surprising if Wazzu finished fifth or sixth, or if UCLA ended up in first, it wouldn’t be shocking.

So I suppose the lesson to be learned from WTHJHH? is never get too high (first time you heard that in a college paper, eh?) or too low.

A 6-0 start isn’t a guarantee of anything. Beginning the year out of the Top 25 isn’t either.

WTHJHH? could strike in either instance, and silly as it may sound this season, Pac-10 history dictates that UCLA fans can’t rule out the possibility of asking a follow up question: CYSTR?

As in, Can You Smell the Roses?