The University of Southern California, with its rich football tradition, and the University of Oregon, with its flashy uniforms and high-octane offense, are the two teams most commonly associated as national powerhouses on the west coast.
Oh, how the west has fallen.
From 2002-06, USC either won the national championship outright or had a share of it. During that same time period, the Trojans won three Heisman trophies.
About the same time USC started to lose its grip on college football, Oregon picked up the Trojans’ pieces and fitted them for itself.
Since 2010, the Ducks have won two Rose Bowls, a Fiesta Bowl, three Pac-12 Championships and have had two appearances in the National Championship game. They also boast their own Heisman trophy winner in Marcus Mariota.
Without a doubt, the No. 23 Ducks and No. 24 Trojans have been the class of west coast college football since 2002, and every time these two teams met, national championship implications came with it.
How the times have changed.
Come Saturday, when the Ducks and Trojans play, there won’t be any national championship implications. ESPN’s College Gameday won’t be in attendance. It’s a miracle that both teams are still within fighting distance of making it to the conference championship game.
What could once be described as the “west coast championship” is merely another game, on another Saturday, near the end of the college football season.
The game isn’t even the premier matchup for the afternoon time slot. No. 3 Ohio State and No. 9 Michigan State will kickoff at 12:30 p.m. also, thus taking away the national audience of the Oregon-USC game.
While both teams have players who will play in the NFL, most notably Oregon defensive lineman DeForest Buckner and USC linebacker Su’a Cravens, there will be no player trying to pad their stats in hopes of raising the Heisman trophy.
Oregon struggled out of the gate this season with losses to Michigan State, Utah and Washington State. The Ducks were breaking in a new quarterback, Vernon Adams Jr., and once he was injured, Oregon’s high-powered offense was anything but. The Ducks have righted the ship with four straight wins but a loss to the Trojans will have fans thinking of the early-season failures rather than the late-season success.
On the other hand, USC has been a tale of Jekyll and Hyde. In some games, the Trojans look dominant (i.e. wins over Utah and Arizona State). In others, the Trojans look like a team with no direction (i.e. a loss to Washington and a three-point win over Pac-12 cellar-dweller Colorado).
The Ducks can be crowned Pac-12 North champions only if they beat USC and Oregon State and if No. 11 Stanford loses to Cal on Saturday.
USC controls its own destiny en route to the conference championship. It needs to beat the Ducks on Saturday before taking caring of business against UCLA in the regular season finale.
With Oregon’s victory over Stanford last week and USC’s victory over No. 13 Utah earlier in the year, the Pac-12 doesn’t seem to have any potential for the College Football Playoff.
Once primed as must-see college football, the game between Oregon and USC is one that will surely fall through the cracks once the rest of the national games have finished. What was once considered the biggest game on the west coast a mere five years ago is now considered an afterthought in the national landscape.
Oh, how the west has fallen.
Follow Ryan Kostecka on Twitter @Ryan_Kostecka