LOS ANGELES_For a precious few moments, the fight was actually even, cardinal jersey on blue jersey, two hometown teams scrapping for every bit of neighborhood, a thing of localized beauty.
UCLA actually led! Then, after USC tied it up, UCLA actually led again!
In a Rose Bowl dotted with empty bleachers on a late and chilly Saturday night, the UCLA fans roared, then the USC fans roared, back and forth, again and again, the Los Angeles college football landscape as ablaze as a Santa Monica sunset.
But then, succinctly, efficiently, just as everyone expected, this town's two football teams headed off in their vastly different directions.
USC and the resurgent Clay Helton are soaring toward a bowl game that could involve roses.
UCLA and the downtrodden Jim Mora are skidding toward an early vacation that will involve regret.
The 86th renewal of the USC-UCLA rivalry was interesting, then intriguing, then just plain predictable in the Trojans 36-14 victory.
A seven-point Bruins lead early in the second quarter put the place on edge, then everyone sighed and reclined into the separate realities that have encompassed this town's passing-in-the-night football teams.
Everyone knew USC, which has won seven consecutive games for the first time since the Pete Carroll era, was hot. Well, the Trojans just got hotter.
"This is special and I am going to remember this forever," senior running back Justin Davis said.
Everyone also knew UCLA was scuffling, having lost five of six games since the injury loss of quarterback Josh Rosen. Well, their hole just got deeper.
"A real tough and ugly night," Coach Jim Mora said.
The domination was slow in coming, but bruising in its completion. The Trojans, despite trailing the Bruins in yardage after one quarter, outgained them, 527 yards to 266. The Trojans eventually ran almost twice as many plays, held the ball for more than 25 more minutes, and allowed UCLA just eight yards rushing in the final three quarters.
"I thought it was a big man's game," Helton said.
For the Trojans, it started as usual with kid quarterback Sam Darnold. He threw two interceptions, but his presence was as dominating as ever, bullet passes worth 267 yards and two touchdowns, a surprisingly quick run of 15 yards, commanding leadership that has not been seen around the USC campus since Matt Leinart. In fact, he's the first Trojans quarterback since Leinart in 2004 to throw for multiple touchdowns in seven consecutive games. Then there was the Trojans' rushing attack, which gained only one yard in the first quarter but finished with 260 yards, including a 60-yard simple off-tackle touchdown run by Ronald Jones II.
For the Bruins, well, it started, then just stopped. A 14-7 lead less than two minutes into the second quarter was lost midway through the quarter, and the game never again felt close.
Said Helton: "They hit us in the mouth early."
Said Mora: "The old could have, would have, should have, I don't want to go to that."
Mike Fafaul, Rosen's replacement, was game, but the former walk-on was overmatched by a quick and athletic Trojans defense that has harassed the likes of Washington's Jake Browning. After watching Fafaul struggle in completing less than half of his passes, one still wonders why Mora has never filled his bench with top quarterback recruits like the Trojans. After all, remember, Darnold began the year as a backup.
Now Darnold could lead the Trojans into that wonderful bed of thorned flowers. If Utah can beat Colorado next week, the Trojans would advance to the Pac-12 Conference championship game against one of two beatable teams, Washington or Washington State. A victory there would put them in the Rose Bowl. Even their mere appearance there could put them in the Rose Bowl. If one-loss Washington wins the Pac-12 title game and is chosen for college football's final four, then USC would be sent to Pasadena.
"We are going to be praying," said Davis, referring to a possible Utah victory.
The Trojans have certainly come a long way from their 1-3 start that put Helton on the hot seat. Helton will never take credit for the resurgence, but he deserves plenty of it. Yes, everything changed when Darnold replaced Max Browne as the quarterback, but it was Helton who made that call, and Helton who kept the entire team calm and moving forward during the turbulent early storm. And, oh yeah, Helton is now undefeated in two games against the Bruins.
Meanwhile, UCLA has fallen a long way from the early days of the Mora culture change. After winning three consecutive games against USC, Mora has lost the last two, and UCLA will probably miss a bowl game for the first time in six years.
While USC can continue to move forward in a new era with its final regular-season game next week against Notre Dame, UCLA enters its final regular-season game against California wondering if its current era has reached a roadblock.
Mora has based the program future on Rosen, but even before he was hurt, the sophomore was erratic and inconsistent. Now that he is battling through a shoulder injury, what happens next year? Last year the blame was put on the injured defense, this year on the injured Rosen, all of it exposing UCLA's lack of depth, and now what? This game confirmed how the Bruins have lost valuable ground to the post-probation Trojans, and the burden is on Mora to figure out how to repeat his 2013 claim that "we own this town."
None of what happened on the field Saturday was a shocker. The only real surprise was a Rose Bowl that officially contained about 20,000 empty seats, with the announced attendance of only 71,137.
Part of the reason was that the Pac-12's horrific television deal pushed a marquee game into an unattractive time slot, a 7:37 p.m. kickoff that just doesn't work for fans in this town. It was late, the temperatures were dropping, and the empty bleachers glistened to the certain chuckles from late-night East Coast TV viewers.
Another reason for the low attendance was that the game wasn't supposed to be much of a game, and it wasn't.
