LOS ANGELES – The schools have trumpeted this year’s UCLA-USC gridiron clash as a high-stakes affair.
There is something considerable on the line with the winner advancing to the Pac-12 championship game, but this type of stage has become increasingly rare.
Rather than both vying for the conference’s top prize, much less a national championship, in the same season, recent renditions of the crosstown rivalry have tended to be one-sided, dominated by one school for a stretch of time with the other resigned to play spoiler.
UCLA reeled off eight consecutive victories over the Trojans in the 1990s, followed by USC winning 12 of 13 games from 1999 to 2011, a run that included win streaks of seven and five games.