I Come To Bury the Victory Bell, Not to Praise It

AlmaOtter has identified the top 25 B1G rivalries, but not yet ranked them [AO: I'd like to pretend that this is because I'm saving up for the big reveal, but it's really because I'm lazy and haven't written the pieces]. Before the rankings are revealed, I just want to get something off my chest, and to do so in article form:

USC/UCLA, while an important and historic rivalry, really is the worst of all worlds. In my humble opinion, it may have the biggest gap between “what the rivalry is” and “what the rivalry could be” of any true rivalry in college football. As such, I do not seek to deny its rivalry-ness. Rather, I want to point out how little bang for the buck there really is. 

Before I bury Troy (and Westwood), though, let me offer one bit of praise: When they play and they’re each in their home jerseys it truly is the best on-field look in college football. 

Unfortunately that’s about it. 

What’s not to like? Here’s a top 10 list:

1. UCLA isn’t really USC’s biggest rivalry. It’s Notre Dame. You know how I know that? Because the USC/UCLA game gives way to USC/Notre Dame every other year when USC hosts Notre Dame to end the season. In fact, the last time UCLA closed their regular season against USC was 2015. Which, since they instead would play Stanford or Cal, had the effect of messing with another allegedly classic rivalry. 
2. You don’t want to admit I’m right, but how many USC/UCLA moments can you think of? How many USC/Notre Dame moments? Right. 
3. What’s the most famous moment in the entirety of the USC/UCLA rivalry? A truly breathtaking 64 yard gallop by…the most infamous athlete in American sports history. 
4. Since that 1967 showdown, the highest-profile meeting between the two was 1988. 9-0 USC @ 9-1 UCLA. Winner goes to the Rose Bowl. USC won (of course). Then lost at home to Notre Dame the next week in a 1 vs. 2 matchup. (Then they dropped the Rose Bowl to boot.) 
5. UCLA’s most important win in recent times (and, by that, I mean, the last 30 years) was playing spoiler in 2006 and knocking USC out of the BCS title game conversation. Which had the effect of opening the door for Urban Meyer to win his first national title. Way to piss it down your leg, Trojans. 
6. I can’t find a single time in the last 60 years where the two teams met in a “winner-goes-to-Rose-Bowl showdown” and UCLA won. That’s not much of a rivalry.
7. I lied. There was one. 1993. UCLA beat USC, creating a three-way tie for the Pac-10 title with the Bruins winning the tiebreaker. They went on to turn it over six times in the Rose Bowl and lose to Wisconsin despite piling up 500 yards of offense. 
8. UCLA hasn’t won a Rose Bowl in 40 years. They won three in four years (1982-1985), which is very impressive. Each of those three years, they needed a different game to break the right way (Washington/Wazzu twice; Arizona/Arizona State once)...and it happened. Now that I think of it, this is less a knock on the USC/UCLA rivalry and more a knock on the shittiness of the B1G in the early 1980s. Still. 
9. UCLA once won eight straight in the series (1991-1998) and still USC won a Rose Bowl in the period and USC didn’t. 
10. Go back to 1) above. This year UCLA and USC will close the regular season against each other, the first time in 10 years it’s the season-ender for both. It took the collapse of the Pac-12 for this to happen. A lot of rivalries can claim to have been devalued by the recent wave of expansion. Is there another one that can claim to have benefited? 

I could go on, but you get the point. USC/UCLA aspires to be like Michigan/Michigan State, except that UCLA has done far less to mess up USC over the years than Sparty has their in-state rival. 

Great jerseys, though.