Rooting for USC not always for traitors

As students start to come back to school, it’s a chant
you’ll hear almost as often as “UCLA fight, fight,
fight!” or “Go Bruins!”

It’s a chant that every Bruin fan agrees with, but most
carry it way too far.

Duck SC! ““ Except replace one of the letters in duck with
an “f.”

Yet I still found myself wanting USC’s football team to
beat Hawai’i and Arkansas over the past few Saturdays. And
I’ll still be semi-pulling for the Trojans to win their next
seven games.

Now before you send me a hate-filled e-mail calling me a
“Trojan lover” or a “USC apologist,” or
much worse slurs, stop. Stop now.

I hate USC. With a passion.

My dream would be for UCLA to beat USC this year. And not just
beat them. Beat them 84-0. I want to see Heisman Trophy winner Matt
Leinart crying on the field after completing 1-of-35 passes for 3
yards.

I want to see the Bruin defense intimidate Reggie Bush so much,
he starts running the wrong way.

I want to see much-hyped punter Tom Malone break the record for
punts in a game.

I want to see Pete Carroll cry and yearn for his days as a
mediocre NFL coach.

I want to see Petros Papadakis shut up for a whole five
seconds.

So why do I want USC to win all of its games other than when it
faces UCLA?

Simple.

Maximum joy and triumph.

For those of you who have lived in a cave for the past decade,
USC has beaten UCLA six straight seasons.

Six.

It seems like an eternity.

And on paper, it doesn’t look like it will get better
anytime soon.

Still though, at some point UCLA will beat USC. It’s the
law of averages.

Don’t lose hope. It will happen. The streak will end.

Hopefully, it’s this year. But it might not be until next
year. Or god forbid, a decade from now.

And when that streak ends, I want USC to still be at the top of
its game. I still want the Trojans to be playing at the level of
their back-to-back championship teams. I want UCLA to knock USC out
of the Rose Bowl.

I want it to be a crushing loss for USC. Devastating.

And I want it to mean even more for UCLA. Beating USC, when no
one else has over the past three years, would truly put the Bruins
in the national spotlight.

It wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as finally ending the
streak in a down year, when USC is 4-6, 3-7, 5-5 or something like
that.

That is the main reason why I want the Trojans to be undefeated
when they face the Bruins, but there’s more.

It’s mostly unjust, but college football fans and experts
across the country either perceive the Pac-10 to be a weak
conference or they are completely indifferent to any football west
of the Rocky Mountains.

And if you don’t believe me, there’s some actual
data to back me up. The teams selected each year to college
football’s featured bowl games are determined largely by two
polls, The Associated Press poll and the Coaches’ poll.

And in the last few years, several Pac-10 teams have been robbed
of going to an elite game. Cal was voted outed of the Rose Bowl
last year in favor of Big Ten power Texas, and USC and Oregon were
excluded from competing in the BCS championship games in years
before that.

But USC has largely shut up critics of the Pac-10 the past
couple of years, easily beating some of the best teams in the
country during its long winning streak.

If USC were to have a down year, it would diminish the
accomplishments of any other team in the Pac-10, not just by fans
across the country but the poll voters as well.

So will I openly root for the Trojans, cheer for the them or be
happy when they win?

No. It’s tough for me not to root against USC. But do I
want them to be undefeated when they face off against UCLA?
Yes.

It will make a win over them that much sweeter.

Quiñonez thinks that some of you will read this column,
not understand it and send him hate mail anyway, calling him a
“Trojan lover.” E-mail him at
gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.

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