Entering the 1938 college football season, USC and program patriarch Howard Jones had a lot to prove.
Stanford and California had produced several successful seasons. USC had won five Pacific Coast Conference (the precursor to the Pacific-8 Conference, today’s Pac-12) championships in a six-year span from 1927 through 1932, but from 1933-1937, Stanford and Cal took over. The Trojans didn’t win a conference title in half a decade, which was not the typical Howard Jones standard. USC needed to fight back.
The Trojans began their all-time series with Ohio State in 1937 and beat the Buckeyes in the Coliseum, but that game didn’t help USC in a broader context. The Trojans did not win the Pacific Coast title or reach the Rose Bowl that season. Cal did, and the Golden Bears then shut out Alabama 13-0 in the 1938 Rose Bowl.
USC needed to use the Ohio State game as a catapult to something bigger. In 1938, it did. USC used a bruising, consistent defense to defeat Ohio State, 14-7, on the road in Columbus. This time, the gate was a springboard to something bigger. Combined with USC’s first PCC championship since 1932, the win over the Buckeyes was enough to bring the Trojans back to the Granddaddy.
USC finished 9-2 and went to the Rose Bowl. The Trojans won a celebrated game with a late touchdown against Duke. We wrote about the 1939 Rose Bowl game here.
Ohio State ended its 1938 season with a 4-3-1 record.
1938 pic.twitter.com/U43f2RRD62
— Something different (@RealHowardBeale) June 10, 2023
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