OK, I admit it. Twenty-four hours after railing against ESPN’s ad-choked college football replays (see item below) … I watched almost the entirety of another one.

UCLA 27, Tennessee 24, in overtime.

I saw that game, and wrote a column on it for the Temecula Californian.

In this case, I was glad to see, once more, most of the key plays in a game I didn’t think to tape — since I was covering it, see? Well, and because I thought Tennessee would win by a couple of touchdowns.

A few more thoughts after following this thing to 2 a.m.:

1. UCLA’s top assistant coaches, Norm Chow and DeWayne Walker, had a heck of a night. Both men outschemed their Tennessee counterparts.

Walker’s aggressive, blitzing defense, disguised in a dizzying array of looks, kept the Bruins in the game while Bruins QB Kevin Craft threw four interceptions in the first half. It reminded me, during the game, of the way Walker flummoxed USC in the 2006 regular-season finale, when he kept USC and John David Booty off balance and allowed a physically inferior team to win, 13-9. Seeing it again just reinforced that notion.

Chow, meanwhile, somehow kept Craft from imploding at halftime. (At the game, I hadn’t noticed the verbal beatings Rick Neuheisel dished out to Craft after three of his four interceptions.) Craft played the second half as if he had no memory of the first, and I have to think Chow had a lot to do with that. Later, Chow made a couple of brilliant calls on the last-minute TD drive, including the seam route to Taylor Embree after 28 second-half minutes of slants and hooks that touched off the drive … and the 3-yard TD pass to Ryan Moya, in which ESPN commentator Todd Blackledge helpfully pointed out how Chow’s formation and play selection enabled Moya to get open. Triple receivers to the left, sucking up three Tennessee DBs, tailback Chase Moline going in motion far right, to drag the other safety out of the play, Moya’s hook just over the goal line with only one Vols defender anywhere around him. In person, you see that play once; on TV, you see it four times, even in the truncated “replay” version.

2. I loved the enthusiasm and joy of the UCLA assistants. When you see Norm Chow, who is 61, giddy as a kid up in the press box, other coaches clapping him on the back and slapping hands … well, that’s the kind of energy and excitement that college football is all about. ESPN’s broadcast allowed me to see that.

3. Great shot of Tennessee quarterback Jonathan Crompton falling face-first to the turf after the Vols’ OT field goal attempt went wide left. I was 25 yards to Crompton’s right, and never saw his emotional display.

4. In the press box, I didn’t fully appreciate the breaks UCLA got on a couple of calls. The first, a non-safety in the fourth quarter when Bruins tailback Raymond Carter was tackled very, very close to the end zone. The ball didn’t look as if it were quite out of the end zone. … And the second was the second UCLA touchdown, the one that made it 17-14, when Carter hit the pylon with his left arm … but had the football in his right. Maybe the Bruins score anyway, but I’m not sure that play should have stood up to replay scrutiny — as it did.

5. I appreciated the enthusiasm and excitement of play-by-play man Mike Patrick and analyst Blackledge. Sometimes TV guys who cherry-pick games from all over the country are behind the curve on the tension that fills a stadium, but those guys picked it up right away, and Patrick (known best for his utterly random musings about Britney Spears during overtime of an Alabama-Georgia game last year) wasn’t shy about declaring it a heck of a game — even before it became even a better game.

So, OK, refinement necessary for the “ESPN college football replays are an insult” declaration:

When they involve teams you don’t closely follow, in games you didn’t see … yes, it is terrible. Awful.

When it’s about a game you saw, and seeing just the best 50 plays is exactly what you want, along with some analysis and replays you don’t get in the press box … in those cases, ESPN’s ad-strewn replays are just fine.