UCLA football closes the gap on rival USC
By Daily Bruin Staff
Nov. 22, 2011 1:59 a.m.
Rick Neuheisel isn’t quite ready to proclaim that the football monopoly in Los Angeles is officially over. But he thinks his Bruins have closed the gap on the perennial power across town.
“The gap has closed,” the UCLA coach said at his weekly press conference. “We’re much closer to them than we were when I first got here.”
The evidence he pointed to is the fact that the Bruins have a shot to win the Pac-12 South this weekend with a win against the No. 10 Trojans (9-2, 6-2 Pac-12). USC, which currently sits atop the division, is ineligible for postseason play in the last of a two-year bowl ban, but a UCLA win would give the Bruins (6-5, 5-3) first place regardless.
Neuheisel was reminded of his first days in Westwood as UCLA’s head coach, when he and then-USC coach Pete Carroll would talk about the L.A. rivalry.
“I want to play for more than city championships,” Neuheisel remembered telling Carroll.
“He didn’t think it possible, but here we are.”
The tide seemed to turn in UCLA’s favor when, in the span of six months, Carroll resigned and USC was slapped with a bevy of NCAA sanctions. But UCLA has failed to log a win over its rival since a 13-9 upset at the Rose Bowl five years ago.
Though scholarship restrictions, one of the punitive measures in addition to a two-year postseason ban, don’t take effect until next year, it doesn’t appear that USC has taken too many steps backward. The Trojans are back in the top 10 and could vault even higher with a win over UCLA.
“I can’t concern myself with the sanctions and what the sanctions will mean for their program,” Neuheisel said. “You have to expect that ‘SC’s always going to be very talented.
“We just want to be good with them.”
All-whites in play?
Neuheisel acknowledged an Internet rumor that UCLA would unveil a new away uniform ““ white helmets, jerseys and pants ““ on Saturday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but could not confirm or deny the report.
“No one’s told me anything,” Neuheisel said. “We’re blue and gold as far as I know.”
The rivalry between the two schools took on a more colorful tone in Neuheisel’s first year on the job, when he and Carroll agreed to ditch white and have both teams wear home uniforms for the game. The new tradition has continued since.
“I love the home uniforms,” Neuheisel said. “I think it’s one of the classic games in college football.”
In October, athletic director Dan Guerrero said on UCLA’s website that adidas had planned “meaningful changes to our current adidas TECHFIT football uniforms for this season and beyond.”
UCLA’s jerseys have remained unchanged since a midseason switch to the TECHFIT line last year.
Compiled by Ryan Menezes, Bruin sports senior staff.
