The week began with an emphasis on fiction, the newspaper headlines reading: "For UCLA and USC, Momentum Moves Across Town,"and "This City Could Be UCLA's For The Taking."
It ended -- or so everyone thought until both teams threatened to riot -- with a reality check, and so now we know: Both UCLA and USC are really nothing special this season.
The only thing going in their favor: Pete Carroll will now be accused of poor sportsmanship for piling on, and no one will dwell very long on the miserable football game played here.
Carroll's postgame explanation for pulling a Jim Harbaugh and trying to run up the score with a bomb in the final seconds rings hollow, of course, given his irritation with the Stanford coach two weeks ago.
He says it was all about competing, his lifelong mantra, pointing out the media will probably come to a different conclusion, but all that matters is competing in the moment. It was a nice speech, but had this been a game of Monopoly, there would be no reason to keep playing.
Later, Coach Rick Neuheisel would make no big deal of the final TD that would give USC a 21-point margin of victory, but as tacky as the touchdown call, the Trojans' taunt that followed was just as classless.
Maybe that's what a rivalry is supposed to be, or some people think so, rubbing the opponent's nose in defeat, but this didn't feel right when it was all over.
I've come to expect more from Carroll, and although fun in its execution, he should have killed the idea when it came through his headset.
Oh, well, it really was an awful night. It's one thing to play this rivalry at night, but both of these outfits acted as if they were playing with the lights turned out.
It'd be considered a defensive struggle if someone put an offense on the field, but this had the feel of a preseason scrimmage.
I begin with UCLA, their supporters and everyone else duped into thinking the Bruins were making progress because they came into this game beating three teams that haven't won a game between them in a month.
Take Washington, Washington State and Tennessee off the schedule, and the Bruins under Neuheisel are 4-14 rather than 10-14. Two years into Neuheisel's run here and the Bruins have beaten only one team that went on to end the season with a winning record.
