Oh, it’s on now, Pete Carroll.
If you haven’t already heard, Bruin fans, the USC head football coach has just dissed you.
In an effort to renew the old tradition of the L.A. rivalry, Carroll has decided that his players will wear their cardinal red home jerseys this weekend, intentionally defying an NCAA rule that will dock the Trojans a first half timeout for their infraction.
But it is not the NCAA violation that should upset you.
The rule itself is just an unfortunate hurdle standing in the way of an archaic custom. The enraging part about Carroll’s move is that he shows no hesitation in giving his team an actual on-field disadvantage in this football contest, which should be seen as a direct slight at Bruin Nation.
OK, so the probability of this game being anywhere close is about the same as that of snow falling on the Rose Bowl turf this weekend, but the nature of a good rivalry is that no matter what is at stake for either team, both teams play like their lives depend on the outcome.
Although in his heart Carroll may be for promoting tradition, the move is disrespectful to the rivalry in the way it so presumptuously highlights the disparity between these two teams.
Do you think Carroll would give up a precious timeout if both teams were 10-1 and both were vying for a return trip to Pasadena in January?
Absolutely not.
Another infuriating feature of this misguided gesture is that the wearing of the “home reds” is supposed to symbolize this matchup as a home game for both teams.
In the wake of the whole summer fiasco about the Trojans getting booted from the Coliseum and sharing a home field with UCLA, this idea that the Rose Bowl is also Trojan territory is absurd.
And the fact that USC has played in the annual Rose Bowl Game four of the last five seasons can’t make it any easier for Bruin ears to hear all this traitorous talk.
Rick Neuheisel and the UCLA marketing department once also tried to stir up the rivalry, but in a much less offensive fashion.
At the beginning of the season, UCLA bought a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times that read, “The Football Monopoly in Los Angeles is Officially Over.”
Though it may have seemed like a jab at USC or Pete Carroll himself, all that this stunt ever did or hoped to do was stoke the fire of a rivalry that had seemingly lost its intensity with the disparate states of these individual football programs.
Even at the time, and much more so now, this advertisement was nothing more than a harmless taunt.
Now you’ve gotten 11 inches into this column about such a trivial rule violation and you’re wondering what this is really all about.
Of course, there is almost no chance that this one measly timeout will affect the outcome of the game (but wouldn’t that be something if it did!) and Neuheisel has already announced that he plans to burn one of his own timeouts early in the game in solidarity with the move.
The important thing to note here is that this is just another example of USC’s arrogance.
Everybody knows Trojan football owns this city. They have filled the gap in its heart where an NFL team usually rests ““ and they have the professional-level talent to prove it. This is the “Monopoly” to which Neuheisel is attempting to play the trustbuster.
One of these teams is the Pac-10’s only national contender, and the other is having a really hard time scoring an offensive touchdown.
You don’t need to shove that down our throats, Pete.
If there is anyone who should take this sentiment to heart, anyone at all who this should matter to, it is the Bruin players themselves.
When those Powder Blues take the field this Saturday, they will be facing enormous odds. In addition to a 33-point spread, a sea of red will fill a good portion of their own stands ““ USC was allotted 25,000 tickets to the Rose Bowl ““ and an army of red will tower over them at the line of scrimmage.
But those Bruins should remember one thing.
That stark cardinal red may represent a powerful program and its giant fan base, but it was the hubris of that same color that helped the underdog blue pull off a shocker the last time these two teams met here in 2006.
Sure your bowl hopes are dashed, and this is the toughest team you’ve played all season, but there’s still plenty of bulletin-board material out there.
So, put that life-size poster of coach Carroll up on your dorm room wall. It’s time to bust out the darts.
If you’ll be dressing for a hailstorm on Saturday, e-mail Smukler at esmukler@media.ucla.edu.