USC wrapped its arms around another bumper crop of football recruits Wednesday in an apparent attempt to bump UCLA completely out of the sports section.
OK, the situation is not that dire, although comparing UCLA's solid recruiting class to USC's cornucopia is like comparing Miss Pomona Fair to Heidi Klum.
USC's Trojans may look back on these as their Caesar salad days while UCLA, fresh off a losing season and spate of exit interviews with departing players, finds itself desperately looking forward.
Make no mistake: the Bruins' 2004 recruiting class is the envy of
"They're still bringing in guys a lot of other schools wish they had," Greg Biggins, the Southland-based director of recruiting for Student Sports, said.
One recruiting service ranked UCLA's 2004 class as high as 19th nationally -- but that may not cut it in a town where expectations are skyscraper high and the next-door-neighbor rival just won the Rose Bowl, a share of the national title and this year's recruiting lotto.
The Bruins signed 20 high school players to national letters of intent Wednesday, those recruits joining six junior college players already enrolled.
The Bruins secured an important "hold" when standout defensive end Brigham Harwell, who had wavered between UCLA and Arizona State, signed with the Bruins.
UCLA Coach Karl Dorrell said he was well aware of what was going on across town.
"They're doing as good as anybody in the country right now," he said of USC. " ... but you can't let that sidetrack what's important within your own program ..."
The remarkable thing is not that USC has pulled away from UCLA -- it's how far the Trojans have distanced themselves so fast.
Six games into the 2001 season, UCLA was 6-0 and ranked No. 4 in the nation after a 56-17 win over California. That same Saturday, Oct. 20, USC lost at Notre Dame and Coach Pete Carroll's first-year record fell to 2-5.
Since, USC has gone 27-4 while UCLA is 15-16.
In the tenuous, win-now world of college football, players flock to the front-runners.
"It's a bandwagon society," David Norrie, former UCLA quarterback and current college football analyst for ABC, said this week.
These days, that wagon is hitched to a white horse.
There is no 15-yard penalty for piling on in recruiting, but that's what USC is doing to UCLA.
Rivalry watchers have never seen anything quite like it.
