Some coaches simply have another coach’s number. Such was the case in the head-to-head matchup between Larry Smith and John Cooper. This imbalanced battle helped USC in 1989.
When Smith was at the University of Arizona, he regularly defeated Arizona State. He managed to beat Darryl Rogers. Then, when Cooper took over the Sun Devils in 1985, Smith continued to bedevil ASU. Smith beat Cooper in 1985. He then defeated Cooper’s great 1986 Arizona State team which won the Pac-10 title and later beat Michigan in the 1987 Rose Bowl. Even when Cooper had a more accomplished team with generally better players, Smith knew how to beat him.
In 1989, with Smith relocated at USC and Cooper coaching Ohio State, the Trojans had the better players. Smith didn’t waste the opportunity.
The USC Trojans blew out Ohio State in Los Angeles, 42-3. The Trojans ended the year 9-2-1 under Larry Smith and got a Rose Bowl victory.
Ohio State finished that season with an 8-4 record and a loss in the Hall of Fame Bowl.
It’s true that Larry Smith’s USC tenure quickly lost steam in the early 1990s, but he did deliver three straight Rose Bowl appearances to the Trojans after the program made just one Granddaddy in a seven-season span (1980-1986). The 1989 team was his last Rose Bowl team at USC. It maxed out against Ohio State and showed Cooper that he had a lot of work to do to build back the Buckeyes in one of the more difficult periods of that school’s football history.
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