Can UCLA-Southern Cal Be Considered A Rivalry?
In the last 15 years of our ‘rivalry’ 1 team has dominated. We dominated for 8 years, unprecedented to this day, and in the last 7 years the Trojans have dominated. Rivalries require two strong teams to go at it with both teams winning. That hasn’t happened in 15 years. So, is this really a legit rivalry now??
The best rivalries are of the Lakers-Celtics variety, when both teams were beating each other and winning championships. No one refers to the Lakers-Celtics of today as a rivalry. In college football, you’d have to go to Michigan-Ohio State, or Florida-Florida State, or Miami-Florida State. In those rivalries there are teams trading wins and titles, maybe not to the degree of the Lakers-Celtics, but certainly much more than UCLA-Southern Cal.
The other thing about legit rivalries is that both teams matter. Sure, UCLA and Southern Cal matter to their fans. If that were the only test of a rivalry then of course we have one. Then again, so do Harvard and Yale. In football, no one cares about Harvard-Yale, and unfortunately, no one cares about UCLA-Southern Cal … because we don’t matter anymore.  Everyone is talking about the Trojans meeting Ohio State in the national title game already. As if UCLA were Grambling or some “just show up and win” game. No rivalry of any stature would have that kind of irrelevance.
But our football program is irrelevant as we have been saying since the beginning of the season when not one analyst had us reaching higher than 4th in the Pac-10, and that was AFTER a “break-out” record 10-2 season. We can forget about insignificance and what it means for our ‘rivalry’ for one week though. We need to stop the slide and beat the Trojans. Then we can hire a coach that can actually renew our ‘rivalry’ by winning the Pac-10 and competing for a BCS bowl game. Go Bruins!!!
