A History Of The UCLA – USC Crosstown Rivalry

Located a mere eleven miles apart in America’s second largest city, it’s common knowledge that the University of California, Los Angeles, located in the tony district of Westwood with affluent Bel-Air bordering the campus, and the University of Southern California, located just south of downtown Los Angeles, have perhaps the greatest rivalry in college sports.

Though schools like Alabama, Auburn, Michigan and Ohio State will vehemently protest that notion, they can’t deny that UCLA and USC definitely has the greatest crosstown rivalry.

The Bruins and Trojans have met in football 80 times since 1929, and the series currently stands like this:

USC: 45 wins (minus two that were vacated due to NCAA sanctions)

UCLA: 28 wins.

There have been seven ties, the last one on November 18, 1989, when Bruin kicker Alfredo Velasco had his winning field goal attempt bounce of the crossbar on the game’s last play in a 10-10 tie at the Coliseum.

Incidentally, I know the details because I was at that game as a member of the UCLA Bruin Marching Band.

The longest winning streak in the rivalry is UCLA’s eight straight, put together between 1991 and 1998.

USC’s longest  winning streak in the rivalry is seven, put together between 1999 and 2005.

As one can see, the last 20 years have been dominated by one school or the other.

The first football game between the schools was played on September 28, 1929. The Trojans were already established as the premier football team on the West Coast by that time, having been to the Rose Bowl more than once, while the Bruins were a fledgling program only ten years in existence. The levels between the two programs showed that day as USC won 76-0, which is still the largest margin of victory in the series.

After the Trojans walloped the Bruins again the next year, 52-0, on September 27, 1930, UCLA officials said “Enough!” and cancelled the series for six years, until 1936, when the series resumed and the Bruins showed immense improvement as a program, as evidenced by the 7-7 tie on November 26.

Coincidence? That tie was exactly 85 years to this coming Saturday night, when the two teams clash for the 81st time at the Coliseum.

Speaking of the Coliseum, The Bruins and the Trojans shared the facility from 1929 to 1981, with both teams wearing their home colors – blue and gold for UCLA and cardinal and gold for USC – when they played each other. The Bruins, wanting their own identity and weary of the Oakland Raiders moving to the Coliseum, did a little relocating of their own when they began playing their home games at the Rose Bowl in 1982.

The first UCLA win was on December 12, 1942, when after an all-out prank war between the students at the two schools over USC fraternity members stealing the Victory Bell, given to UCLA by their Alumni Association a few years before, and after the two respective student body presidents signed a treaty making that bell the trophy to the winner of the UCLA – USC football game, Bruin quarterback Bob Waterfield, who would later go on to a stellar career with the Los Angeles Rams and marry legendary Hollywood beauty Jane Russell, led his team to a 14-7 victory.

OJ streaking across the field in 1967.

The best USC win, in my view, was in 1967 when the fourth ranked Trojans, behind O.J. Simpson’s (yes, THAT O.J.) 64-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter, beat then top-ranked UCLA 21-20 in what was billed as “The Game of the Century”. The Trojans went on to win the Rose Bowl that year.

As for UCLA, the Bruins have two greatest victories, both of which I, as a UCLA alum, had the pleasure of seeing and which were so great that I honestly can’t pick one over the other as the single greatest.

The first one was on November 23, 1996, when after USC, led by R. J. Soward’s  long touchdown runs, had built a 17 point lead in the middle of the fourth quarter.

After the Bruins brought the score to 38-31, LaVale Woods fumbled the ball with less than two minutes left. UCLA tied the score a minute later, and took the game to overtime when USC’s Adam Abrams had his winning field goal attempt blocked.

It was the only overtime game in the history of the rivalry, which ended with Skip Hicks’ 25-yard touchdown run in the second OT after the two teams traded field goals in the first OT.

It was the only time that the Bruins led. The final score: 48-41, UCLA.

John David Booty had a little bit of trouble in 2006.

As for the other greatest victory by UCLA, that was on December 2, 2006, when the Bruins, at a just-OK 6-5, were facing a powerhouse of a Trojan team that was second ranked and going for a spot in the BCS National Championship game.

I don’t know if Pete Carroll’s team was taking UCLA lightly that afternoon, but a defensive effort for the ages, capitalized by Eric McNeill’s interception of USC quarterback John David Booty as the Trojans were driving for the winning score and followed by Aaron Perez’s booming punt that put ‘SC on their own 12 yard line for their last play – a Hail Mary pass that fell incomplete – led to the biggest upset in the series’ history.

The final score that day: 13-9, UCLA.

Which knocked the Trojans out of the BCS title game.

In another coincidence, the Bruins have the same record this year as that 2006 team going into the USC game: 6-5.

We’ll certainly see if history repeats itself.

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