There is a ton of pressure on USC this Saturday against UCLA. Lincoln Riley, Alex Grinch, Caleb Williams, and the USC secondary all face an enormous amount of scrutiny. Failure to deliver on a stage this big will generate a lot of criticism if they fall short.
Yet, in many ways, the burden on the UCLA Bruins is greater, for one very simple reason: UCLA isn’t going to get a lot of chances to do something like this.
USC is going to have a better, deeper, more complete team next season with roster reinforcements and additions from the transfer portal, on top of incoming recruits.
UCLA? The Bruins will be in full rebuild mode, because the anchor of their team, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, has been with the program for five years. Chip Kelly’s UCLA tenure is as long as DTR’s. It has taken five years for UCLA’s coach and QB to develop to the point that they could make a run at the school’s first conference championship since 1998. This UCLA roster also includes some grad transfers. This is a very old team in college football terms. Everything has led to this moment on Saturday, and if UCLA can’t win, the Bruins aren’t going to be back here in 2023. When they move to the Big Ten in 2024, they aren’t likely to have much of a chance of competing with Michigan and Ohio State.
This was just one of many topics discussed on the Trojans Wire weekly USC show at The Voice of College Football:
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