When the USC Trojans would play the UCLA Bruins on the football field, it used to matter. It may again one day, but for now, it’s an irrelevant rivalry.
When you think of Pac-12 rivalries, games like the Apple Cup, The Big Game and the Civil War often come to mind. These are bitter rivalries on the West Coast between Pac-12 schools in Washington, California and Oregon, respectively. Yet, we too often tend to forget about another in-state rivalry in the Pac-12 in the former of the USC Trojans and the UCLA Bruins.
These two Pac-12 South schools battle for bragging rights in Los Angeles. USC holds a 47-32-7 all-time lead over UCLA, which does not include two vacated Trojans wins in 2004 and 2005. Both schools have had lengthy winning streaks over each other. UCLA dominated in the 1990s, while USC owned the early-to-mid-2000s. 29 times has this game’s winner finished in the top-10.
However, this rivalry seems to have fallen on hard times in recent years. USC hasn’t been its usual dominant self since Pete Carroll left Los Angeles for the Pacific Northwest to coach the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks. After a decade of dominance, Jim Mora did his best to make UCLA the team to beat in town, but it was only short-lived.
Not since the 2011 meeting when the Trojans shut out the Bruins to the tune of 50-0 has the winner of this rivalry series finish the year ranked in the top 10. With USC having lost four times already this year and UCLA needing to win its next two games to achieve bowl eligibility at 6-6, we will have the eighth straight meeting between these two without the winner being a top-10 team.
This game used to decide who ends up winning the Pac-8/Pac-10/Pac-12. Now it only really has the intrigue of Angelenos who aren’t fascinated by the NFL. Will this rivalry get back to what it used to be? That all really depends on the right head coaches being in a position of power to succeed.
UCLA hired Chip Kelly ahead of the 2018 NCAA season. The former Oregon Ducks head coach briefly had success in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles before that fell apart and one horrendous year with the 2016 San Francisco 49ers. His team is trending up to some degree, but didn’t we all expect a bowl game out of Kelly in Westwood by year two leading the Bruins?
As for USC, the team keeps winning enough to keep a mediocre head coach in Clay Helton in charge. The university athletic department is inherently dysfunctional. USC’s new school president may want to cut out the funny business, but would the Trojans be willing to deal with the backlash of Urban Meyer replacing Helton if that means a few more wins in the ledger for the Trojans.
At this time, we’ll likely see Helton lead his team to an unimpressive eighth victory of the season over Kelly’s team that doesn’t have the on-field talent of the team it is competing against. Few people outside of Los Angeles will care, as this game will have no impact on the College Football Playoff picture. It’s Oregon and the Utah Utes’ year, not the Bruins’ or the Trojans’.
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