The Trojans huddled as a team at midfield and jumped after every score. The way their offense was moving, they were jumping early and often.
The Bruins were stagnant in plenty of aspects. Though their brand-new, all-white jerseys didn’t mean they were surrendering, the scoreboard made it look as if they did.
Trojans 50, Bruins 0 is a score that will be remembered not only because of the way USC roundly defeated UCLA in the 2011 edition of the crosstown rivalry, but for what it meant to each team.
While USC (10-2, 7-2 Pac-12) took first in the conference’s South Division, its season ended Saturday night. It will be second-place UCLA (6-6, 5-4) that gets to go to the inaugural Pac-12 Championship game, a fact that riled up the players, coaches and fan base at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
UCLA was going to the conference championship regardless of its result by virtue of Utah’s loss to Colorado on Friday, but maintained it wasn’t overconfidence that did the team in.
“Yeah, we got into the Pac-12 Championship, but for us, we’ve got to win,” said senior running back Derrick Coleman, part of a group of fourth-years who went winless against USC during their UCLA careers. “They want to use that as an excuse, let them use that use that as an excuse. It was our fault. We came out here flat.”
The last rivalry game at the Coliseum ended with a bomb. This one started with one. Just four plays in, USC quarterback Matt Barkley found wide receiver Marquis Lee deep past the secondary for a 42-yard touchdown.
UCLA responded by driving 79 yards down the field, but needed 80. After getting first-and-goal from the nine-yard line, four runs left the Bruins 1 yard short of the end zone ““ a sequence reminiscent of a similar failure in a loss at Stanford earlier in the year.
The Trojans promptly drove the ball nearly the length of the field to make it 14-0.
“It would have been great to have a methodical drive and cap it with a touchdown,” redshirt junior quarterback Kevin Prince said. “Instead, we come out empty-handed, and they go up 14-nothing. It would have helped a lot, just in terms of the psyche of the team.”
UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel, who earlier in the week had said that the “gap had closed” between UCLA’s and USC’s football programs, was once again forced to explain why his team couldn’t negotiate a 1-yard gap between itself and a tied game.
“It was going to be one of those games where we’d have to keep up with them, so I took a swing and it didn’t work out,” Neuheisel said. “I would do it again. We need to make that 1 yard.”
From then on, Barkley made sure the rout was on.Â
He finished with six touchdowns in a showcase performance that he will add to his Heisman Trophy resume, all while hearing the chants of “One more year!”
Barkley was as precise as he was prolific, puncturing the UCLA defense with short gains while deflating the Bruins with long balls. He found his receivers for gains of 41, 42, 52 and 57 yards and finished 35-of-42 for 423 yards.
“It’s kind of crazy, I’ve been watching him on TV doing that ““ throwing for 400 yards, doing his thing. Then I was on the defense,” redshirt freshman safety Tevin McDonald said. “That’s not my business whether they’re trying to get his stats up, but I know he had a great game.”
UCLA will face Oregon at Autzen Stadium on Friday, the site of a 60-13 Bruin loss to the Ducks in 2010. The two teams did not play this year.
“(This loss) is going to hurt a little more, considering who we played and the fashion and which we lost. It doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got to bounce back,” redshirt junior quarterback Kevin Prince said. “We’ve just got to bounce back faster than we usually do.”
Another 6-6 season for Neuheisel means his Bruin teams have finished no better than .500 in each of his four regular seasons at the helm. They have also failed to beat the Trojans in five years, dating back to an upset at the Rose Bowl in 2006.
That 13-9 score is still on the minds of Bruin fans, but 50-0 will have just as lasting an impression among the Trojans.