Pregame Guesses: UCLA Football Hosts Southern Cal at the Rose Bowl
Pregame Guesses: UCLA Football Hosts Southern Cal at the Rose Bowl
Will last year's Biletnikoff winner hurt the Bruins tomorrow? Can Dorian Thompson-Robinson replicate his performance versus the Trojans from last year? Who wins?
Greetings and welcome to the UCLA versus Southern Cal version of Pregame Guesses! Southern Cal comes into tomorrow’s contest seeking to make a statement to the country about its candidacy for what I like to call the “fictional national championship playoff invitational.” They also want to avenge their blowout loss to the Bruins last season. UCLA enters the contest looking to bounce back after a hugely disappointing home loss versus Arizona last Saturday night, which removed the Bruins from the postseason playoff discussion.
The Crosstown Showdown. The Battle of Los Angeles. The City Championship. UCLA/USC. Good versus Evil. What do you like to call this rivalry? I have heard many different names over the years, but it does not seem that one has really ever stuck. I personally prefer the simplicity of The City Championship. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
As always for this game, the music selection is easy. Here is the Solid Gold Sound of the UCLA Marching Band! Crank it up to full volume!
“Mighty Bruins” and “Sons of Westwood” in one clip? It doesn’t get any better than that. If that does not get you excited for this game, turn up the volume HIGHER and listen again. If THAT doesn’t work, I am not sure what will.
It is time to get fired up to Beat $c!
Southern Cal has become the poster child for the transfer portal under new head coach Lincoln Riley. The Trojans’ starting quarterback, their top receiver, and their top running back all wore different uniforms last season. UCLA does not need to worry about running back Travis Dye because the Oregon transfer was injured last Saturday and is done for the season.
Receiver Jordan Addison is another story. He won the Biletnikoff Award (top receiver in the country) last season at Pittsburgh with 17 touchdown catches and 1,593 receiving yards. This season, however, the wideout’s production has sharply decreased, mostly because Southern Cal has plenty of weapons when they have the ball and do not need to lean on him like Pitt did. Addison has only 587 yards receiving and seven touchdowns in 2022. He was a bit banged up going into the Colorado game last weekend and only caught one pass for two yards. Before that, in a close loss to Utah, Addison had seven catches for 106 yards and a touchdown in Salt Lake City. Addison should play and could excel against the Bruins, who have the #102 ranked passing defense in the country. This is a matchup that the Trojans will likely try to exploit. Pregame Guess Number One: Prediction Jordan Addison’s receiving stats for the UCLA game—receptions, receiving yards, and touchdowns.
This will be Dorian Thompson Robinson’s last regular season home game in a UCLA uniform. It has been a fascinating ride and one in which DTR has matured right before our eyes. Long gone is the indecisive, wide-eyed freshman who couldn’t hold onto the ball; the kid wearing the #1 jersey in powder keg blue is now a confident quarterback who, more often than not, makes the right decisions in leading the team. He is now also a fixture in UCLA’s record books.
Last season at the Coliseum, DTR had a game for the ages, throwing for 349 yards and two touchdowns, and rushing for 46 yards with two more touchdowns. I believe that he also hurdled a player for the first time, something he has now repeated several times. Will Thompson-Robinson step up again in perhaps the biggest game of the Chip Kelly era? Pregame Guess Number Two: Predict Dorian Thompson Robinson’s stat line—passing attempts, completions, passing yards, passing touchdowns, interceptions, rushes, rushing yards, and rushing touchdowns.
Let’s make this one easy. Who wins and what will be the score? Pregame Guess Number Three: Predict the final score of The City Championship game tomorrow.
Bonus Guess: Well, the Rose Bowl has sold out, so there is really no point in a bonus guess this week to predict the attendance. So, we are going to go with something different here today.
Many of The Mighty Bruin’s readers have long histories of UCLA vs. Southern Cal rivalry games. And we all have our favorite and not-so-favorite memories from this rivalry. Let’s hear them! Rather than a prediction, tell us what your WORST memory of this rivalry is, followed by your BEST memory.
I’ll go first.
My worst memory is a tossup. There are some other candidates, but I am going to pick Todd Marinovich snatching a win at the Rose Bowl over a Tommy Maddox-led UCLA squad in 1990 with his touchdown pass to Johnny Morton with sixteen seconds remaining. Just a brutal loss.
My best memory was Eric McNeal picking off John David Booty to secure the 13-9 upset win that kept Southern Cal out of the championship game in 2006. Even my Florida Gator friends thank me for that one (UCLA’s win allowed Florida to secure what would have been Southern Cal’s spot in the national championship game and the Gators ultimately beat Ohio State). Again, there are some others in play, but I think this one was especially sweet because it broke UCLA’s seven-game losing streak to the Trojans and kept the Trojans out of the title game.
Make your guesses and blow off UCLA vs. Southern Cal steam in the comment section!
Go Bruins!!! Beat $c!!!
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Answer to your question, is NO. I believe DTR will try to force his statement on the field. What happened last year, has nothing to do with this weekend. It's unfortunate because there is nothing better than to beat the favored U$C. I'm not sure what Bruin team will show up because both the Oregon and Arizona demonstrated with a bit of physicality, the Bruins can be intimidated.
"My best memory was Eric McNeal picking off John David Booty to secure the 13-9 upset win that kept Southern Cal out of the championship game in 2006."
Well, Mr Jacobs, you have made a memorable pick among many memorable games and I applaud you. BUt mine goes back to antiquity, to a grey, overcast day in Los Angeles where you have not seen anything the likes of USC's Mike Garrett running student body left and student body right for the first 56 minutes of the 1965 game in (off course) the Mausoleum and the game clock whizzing like the minute hand of H. G. Wells' time machine at full throttle into the future.
Aftwr that, there's really only five names you need to know to tell the story - although every last Bruin deserves to have their names etched into history - Prothro, Beban, Witcher, Grider, and Altenberg. Basically, the best coach UCLA ever had, UCLA's only Heisman trophy winner, the guy who caught Beban bomb #1, the guy who jumped on the subsequent onside kick, and the guy who caught the Beban bomb #2.
Then, the aforementioned whizzing clock slowed to a snail's pace as the last two plus minutes gave out and the joint when crazy! Being a fan of those who labored in the trenches, I ran out of the stands, caught Dallas Grider at the 30 yard line and rode him back to the huddle of Bruins and Bruin fans and -- man -- he had a smile on his face as big as all outdoors. Needless to say, Westwood went up in flames, both movie theaters suffered a break in and a 15 minute demonstration with sympathetic Westwood residents joining in. And for good measure, Westwood & Wilshire got shut down!
Prothro revealed in a subsequent interview that he told the defense how to treat Garrett with proper sSouthern courtesy. He noted that Mike used to take about 5-15 seconds to compose himself between carries so Tommy told the boys to, "he'p him up; he'p him up" to break up Garrett's rhythm. It's the little things, don't you know!
Of course these Bruins went on to upset #1 Michigan in the Rose Bowl on New Year's day.
..follow-up to the '65 big game? Well, for sheer schadenfreude, no one can top the same game next year where Beban was injured and Norm Dow stepped in and engineered a 14-7 upset based on Cornell Champions' TD on a 425 trap play from about the Toe Jams' 48 yard line.
Guesses for tomorrow's game? No thanks. I'm going to get stewed and hope that the right "D" shows up.