Lincoln Riley, USC, must view UCLA rivalry matchup as one-game season

On Saturday evening, USC will host rival UCLA at the Coliseum. With the Trojans having lost at Oregon last week, the 2025 edition of the Crosstown Showdown will not have any College Football Playoff or Big Ten Championship Game implications.

By no means, however, does that mean that the game does not mean anything. With rivalry games, all records and outside implications get thrown out the window. In contests like these, the only thing that matters is how much the two teams cannot stand one another, and how badly they want to beat each other. Hence, Lincoln Riley and USC must treat Saturday’s contest as a one-game season.

In the long run, by no means would a victory Saturday night erase the frustration of last week’s loss. When we look back on USC’s 2025 season months/years from now, we will remember the Trojans’ struggles on the road and against top ten opponents as the reason that they did not make the College Football Playoff.

But for a few hours on Saturday evening, none of that should matter. When USC and UCLA share the field, all that should matter is beating the other team and asserting bragging rights over the City of Los Angeles.

The past two times that UCLA has come into the Coliseum, the Bruins have recorded resounding wins. Saturday night should be about payback for that. The Trojans need to protect their home field and remind their crosstown foes that college football in Los Angeles still runs through USC.

The saying goes that for USC fans, the best win is a victory over Notre Dame, but the worst loss is a defeat to UCLA. The Trojans were unable to do the former this year, but they still have the ability to avoid the latter.

At the end of the day, what makes college football so amazing is not the playoff, but the rivalries that this sport was built on. On Saturday evening, USC and UCLA will get the opportunity to write the next chapter in their storied rivalry. For one night, at least, nothing else in the sport should matter.

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Lincoln Riley, USC football should treat UCLA as one-game season