This is a throwback year for USC football, not in terms of the style of offense the Trojans use, but certainly in terms of the stakes involved in their November battle with archrival UCLA.
From the mid-1960s through the early 1980s, USC-UCLA was often a high-stakes game. Both schools had great teams in the mid-to-late 1960s. The 1967 game between the two schools remains the most important USC-UCLA game of all time. The games between John Robinson and Terry Donahue in the late 1970s and early 1980s were regularly important. The late 1980s had some very big Trojan-Bruin games as well.
This upcoming game on Nov. 19 won’t be as big as 1967 — that’s really hard to top — but it brings back the magic of a hugely significant Trojan-Bruin battle. Let’s detail all the ways in which this game matters:
PLAYOFF
Had UCLA beaten Arizona, this game was going to be “off the charts” big. The winner would have been in a position to stay alive in the playoff race, needing to win two more games and get a TCU loss (most likely to Baylor or in the Big 12 Championship Game) to pull off the feat and snap the Pac-12’s playoff drought, which extends back to 2016.
As is, USC can still chase a playoff spot, but UCLA is out.
Still: One team is playoff-eligible, and that makes this game very big for USC.
PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
USC automatically qualifies for Las Vegas if it wins.
Had UCLA beaten Arizona, it would have also been in with a win and a subsequent victory over Cal on Thanksgiving weekend. Now, the Bruins have to deal with some Pac-12 tiebreakers to make sure they get in. If Utah beats Oregon this week, life gets very complicated for the Bruins.
HEISMAN
Caleb Williams and Dorian Thompson-Robinson aren’t the clear-cut favorites for the award, but had UCLA beaten Arizona, this game easily could have determined which Los Angeles-based Pac-12 quarterback gets a…
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