It may sound strange to those of us that live in Southern California, but the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is becoming the dominant football team in Southern California. Since we haven’t had a professional football team here in 20 years, the team that normally gets most of the attention is the University of Southern California (USC). However, since the Pacific (Pac) 10 Conference added Colorado and Utah, and became the Pac 12 in 2011, UCLA won the Pac 12 South division both years.
Yes, I know UCLA won the division in 2011, because USC was on probation, and pounded them 50-0. But shortly after that game, and the subsequent 49-31 loss to Oregon in the Pac 12 Championship Game, UCLA fired head coach and former quarterback Rick Neuheisel, and hired former NFL head coach Jim Mora. Between the hiring of Mora and the addition of redshirt freshman quarterback Brett Hundley as starting quarterback, the improvement of the Bruins was immediate.
The 2012 season saw the Bruins start with a 9-2 record. The ninth win was a 38-28 win over USC. So their battle for supremacy in Los Angeles, went from a 50-point defeat, to a 10-point win. But then they lost twice to eventual Rose Bowl winner Stanford to end the regular season. The Bruins lost the last scheduled game, then also the Pac 12 Championship game by a score of 27-24. UCLA did lose the Holiday Bowl to Baylor 49-26, to finish their season with a 9-5 record.
In their second season together, Mora, Hundley, and the rest of the Bruins have stormed out of the gate, with 3 easy wins to start the season. The crushing wins over Nevada and New Mexico State were expected, but their 41-21 beatdown of Nebraska, in Lincoln, made a major statement. What makes this win even more impressive was the fact that Nebraska had a 21-3 lead late in the second quarter. It almost seemed like the 9:00 am Pacific starting time was too early for the Bruins. Once they woke up, they scored 38 straight points to embarrass the Cornhuskers by 20 points at home.
UCLA has a brutal back-to-back road stretch coming up against Top 5 ranked Stanford and Oregon in October, but they are far and away the best team in the Pac 12 South this year. USC has already lost to Washington State at home 10-7, and beat Utah State by a 17-14 score, so they don’t look much better than their terribly disappointing 2012 season. The Trojans started last season ranked #1 in preseason polls, and finished 7-6, losing 5 of their last 6 games.
Until USC gets rid of head coach Lane Kiffin, I don’t expect much improvement in their team. I don’t understand how he keeps getting offered head coaching jobs. With the Oakland Raiders professional football team in 2007 and 2008, he was 5-15 before being fired. The next year he went 7-6 with the University of Tennessee. Somehow that record was impressive enough for USC to hire him. Other than the 10-2 record in one of the probation seasons in 2011, USC is 17-12 with Kiffin as head coach.
Kiffin keeps getting head coaching jobs despite his moderate success at best. I don’t know if it’s because of his hot wife, or the success his father had as a defensive coordinator. His father, Monte Kiffin won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2003, and was defensive coordinator at USC from 2010-2012. It’s looking bleak with USC football for the foreseeable future, especially with cross-town rival UCLA showing such promise. The Bruins beat them by 10 last year, and it might be even worse this year.
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Sports With Frank Thomas
