Row taints Trojans win over Bruins

Los Angeles:The USC-UCLA football rivalry just got a lot more interesting.

Borrowing a style he didn't like when it was used against him two weeks ago, USC Coach Pete Carroll poured it on against an already beaten UCLA in the final minute at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday night.

Up by two touchdowns and with the ball and the game in hand, USC scored on a long pass to make the final score 28-7.

Carroll said after the game that since UCLA was jumping around on the line and "calling timeouts", he thought "we had a shot, so we took it".

UCLA had, indeed, just called a timeout — perhaps Coach Rick Neuheisel's way of teaching his team to compete until the final play.

Conversion attempt

But on the next play, USC quarterback Matt Barkley faked a handoff into the line, stepped back, and found Damian Williams with a 48-yard bomb for the piling-it-on touchdown.

Two weeks earlier, a two-point conversion attempt by Stanford late in its 55-21 victory over USC raised objections from the Trojans' camp.

The ending on Saturday took away some shine earned by the USC defence, which had broken down spectacularly in losses to Oregon and Stanford.

"We have to fight back," linebacker Malcolm Smith said late last week. "We're just trying to be the best we can be at the moment."

Smith and his fellow defensive teammates were good enough on Saturday night, forcing four turnovers in the No 24 Trojans' victory before 85,713.

Bowl scenarios

The Trojans intercepted three passes and recovered a fumble en route to their third consecutive victory over UCLA, their 10th in 11 years.

Junior tailback Allen Bradford rushed for two touchdowns as USC improved to 8-3 overall and 5-3 in the Pacific 10 Conference with representatives from the Holiday, Emerald and Poinsettia bowls looking on.

The Trojans' possible bowl scenarios will become clearer on Thursday night after Oregon plays Oregon State for the Pacific 10 Conference title at Eugene, Ore.

USC concludes its regular-season schedule on Saturday against Arizona, a team that will test a Trojans defence that regained its confidence against the Bruins.