Southern California, that’s a given, it goes without saying, the USC game is always a must win. Now Stanford, they are different. They have become the UCLA measuring stick in recent years. No Pac-12 team, and I mean no Pac-12 team has garnered as much recent attention from UCLA football than Stanford, and no Pac-12 team has smacked the Bruins around as much as the Cardinal have.
There was the infamous “tank game” in 2012, where Jim Mora was questioned about whether he lost to Stanford on purpose so the Bruins would not have to play the then high powered Oregon team, coached by, guess who, Chip Kelly.