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unchained Rivalry

No shortage of great moments in century-long Stanford-USC feud

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Stanford’s E.J. Smith scores on a 5-yard run against USC in the first half of their meeting last season on The Farm. USC won the game 41-28. KARL MONDON — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

USC coach Pete Carroll, left, and Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh engage in the legendary handshake after their 2009 game at the Coliseum during which Carroll inquired: “What’s your deal?” MATT SAYLES — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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By Laurence Miedema

lsmiedema@bayareanewsgroup.com

For more than 100 years, the Stanford-USC football rivalry has had it all: Legendary players. Fantastic finishes. Feuding coaches. Passionate fans.

So it’s fitting that the first conference game of the Pac-12’s farewell season should feature these two teams. This will be the 102nd edition of the Stanford-USC rivalry, and there’s no telling when, or if, there will be a 103rd.

Next fall, Stanford will be playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference and USC will be a member of the Big Ten. Nothing more is scheduled between the teams as of now.

This is a series that began in 1905. Since the end of World War II, the teams have met at least once every season except 2020 because of COVID-19.

Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll ushered in a new era of the rivalry with their “What’s your deal?!” feud and great teams in the late 2000s, but the rivalry continued to sizzle on the field even after the high-profile coaches left for the NFL and had captured plenty of attention long before they arrived on the scene.

The teams don’t always see eye to eye. Stanford does not count a 1918 loss because it fielded a team of student army training corps players or USC’s 51-21 win 2005 that was vacated by NCAA penalty.

Here is a look at some of the memorable moments in the Stanford-USC rivalry.

1933 >> The Stanford-USC series began in 1905, and for decades it was all Trojans. So much so, that in 1932, after watching Stanford lose for the fifth straight time (and fall to 3-10-1 all-time against USC) a group of freshman redshirts famously vowed to never lose to the Trojans again. The “Vow Boys” were good to their word a year later, beating USC 13-7 to end the Trojans’ 27-game winning streak in one of the biggest upsets in the history of West Coast football. They didn’t stop there, shutting out the Trojans the next two meetings and capping their senior season with a Rose Bowl victory.

1951 >> With a spot in the Rose Bowl on the line, Bob Mathias scored twice in the fourth quarter and Stanford went ahead for good in the final minutes of a 27-20 upset win over the favored Trojans and their star, Frank Gifford. Mathias, who three years earlier won an Olympic gold medal in the decathlon at the age of 17, sparked the comeback with a 96-yard kickoff return in the battle of 7-0 teams in front of 90,000 at Memorial Stadium.

1970 >> A year after losing on a field goal attempt as time expired, Stanford got its revenge by upsetting the No. 4-ranked Trojans 24-14 before 86,000 at Stanford Stadium. The Stanford defense stopped USC on the goal line twice, and Jim Plunkett passed for 275 yards as Stanford beat the Trojans for the first time since 1957, snapping the longest streak in the series (12 games).

1972 >> Three decades before Harbaugh and Carroll jousted, it was John McKay and Stanford’s Jack Christiansen spicing up the rivalry. USC was on the top of its game in 1972, winning the national title and beating Stanford 30-21 along the way. But that wasn’t enough for McKay, who, after losing to Stanford the two previous seasons, said “I’d like to beat Stanford by 2,000 points. They have no class. They’re the worst winners I’ve ever gone up against.” Christiansen, who had been promoted that season to succeed John Ralston, returned in kind, telling reporters, “I have no comment on that. I don’t want to get into a urinating contest with a skunk.”

1979 >> There have been only three ties in the 102 previous matchups, and this one cost USC at least a share of the national championship. Trailing 21-0, Stanford scored three unanswered touchdowns to tie the No. 1-ranked Trojans in L.A. USC finished the season 11-0-1, second to Alabama (12-0) in both polls.

1991 >> The rivalry had been lopsided for more than a decade — Stanford had lost 11 straight — before the Cardinal finally broke through with a 24-21 comeback win on Steve Stenstrom’s touchdown pass with 1:11 left. In all, it was Stanford’s first win in the series since 1975 (14-0-1), but marked a major turn in the series: the teams split the next 10 matchups. Bill Walsh took over for Dennis Green on The Farm in 1992 and beat USC 23-9 and threw his own dirt on the Trojans by calling USC “Yesterday U” in Lowell Cohn’s book “Rough Magic.”

2007 >> USC was on top of the college football world in the early 2000s, winning back-to-back national titles in 2003-04, and Stanford was seemingly going nowhere when the Cardinal pulled off one of the biggest upsets in college football history. Harbaugh, shortly after he was hired, raised eyebrows that spring by trash-talking USC and Carroll and proclaiming “We bow to no man. We bow to no program at Stanford University.” Then the 41-point underdogs marched into the Coliseum and stunned second-ranked USC 24-23. They did it with backup quarterback Tavita Pritchard, who won it with a 10-yard TD pass to Mark Bradford on fourth-and-goal with 49 seconds remaining. Stanford won only three other games that season.

2009 >> A year after USC got its revenge for The Upset with a 45-23 rout at Stanford, Harbaugh and Stanford turned up the heat, rolling to a 55-21 victory over the 11th-ranked Trojans at the Coliseum. Stanford, this time a 10-point underdog, scored the final 27 points in handing USC its worst home loss in four decades, and Harbaugh was hoping for more, calling for a two-point conversion attempt (it failed) with Stanford up by 27 points and 6:47 remaining in the Trojans’ homecoming game. That led to the legendary postgame handshake in which Carroll angrily asked Harbaugh, “What’s your deal?” and Harbaugh responded, “What’s your deal?”

2011 >> Only one game in the series has gone into overtime, and it took three for No. 4 Stanford to emerge with a 56-48 victory over No. 20 USC before a Coliseum crowd of 93,607. Andrew Luck passed for three TDs and rushed for another, but Stanford needed Stephan Taylor’s 2-yard TD run with 38 seconds remaining in regulation to send the game into overtime. The teams combined for 36 points in overtime and the game wasn’t decided until A.J. Tarpley recovered a fumble in the end zone, extending the nation’s longest winning streak to 16 games.

2013 >> With ESPN’s College GameDay on hand in L.A. and sparked by interim head coach Ed Orgeron, the Trojans pulled off one of their biggest upsets in the series and crushed No. 5 Stanford’s national title hopes. Unranked USC won 20-17 on a 47-yard field goal as time expired.

2015 >> The arrival of the Pac-12 championship game created the opportunity for the teams to play twice in a season, and the Cardinal made it a clean sweep in 2015. (USC returned the favor two years later). Led by Kevin Hogan, unranked Stanford — which opened the season with a loss to Northwestern — beat No. 6 USC 41-31 in the regular-season matchup. Three months later, ranked No. 7, Stanford secured a spot in the Rose Bowl for the third time in four seasons with a 41-22 win highlighted by Christian McCaffrey breaking Barry Sanders’ single-season all-purpose yards record.

2021 >> Stanford’s most recent victory in the series was another upset, and the unranked Cardinal’s 42-28 victory went a long way in shaping how USC looks heading into Saturday’s game. USC, ranked 14th coming into the game, fired head coach Clay Helton two days after the loss. His departure paved the way for Lincoln Riley to take over the program last season.