USC and UCLA close out the regular season with the Crosstown Showdown on the line — one program chasing a playoff berth, the other just trying to prove Year 1 wasn't a mirage.
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FRI NOV 27 · 11:00 PM CT
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USC
UCLA
USC brings back Jayden Maiava for a third straight season in the same Lincoln Riley offense, with the same coordinator running it — rare continuity in modern college football — flanked by a Waymond Jordan/King Miller backfield that combined for 6.3 yards a carry in 2025. UCLA counters with Nico Iamaleava, trying to rebuild his stock under brand-new head coach Bob Chesney after a rough 2025 that saw him throw 13 touchdowns against 7 interceptions and barely crack 2,000 passing yards.
Chesney arrives from James Madison, where he took the program to the College Football Playoff, and he didn't come to Westwood empty-handed. Running back Wayne Knight and receiver Landon Ellis followed him from JMU to help rebuild a UCLA offense that finished 3-9 overall and 3-6 in Big Ten play a season ago. It's a full-scale rebuild, and rebuilds don't usually arrive fully formed by a rivalry game in late November.
USC, meanwhile, is playing with something to lose. Gary Patterson was brought in specifically to fix a defense — and a linebacker room — that was the most inexperienced unit on last year's roster, and Riley has been candid that anything short of 10 wins, or a surprise playoff berth as a 3-loss team, will read as a disappointment in Los Angeles.
USC Trojans
UCLA Bruins
On paper this isn't close. USC arrives with the nation's No. 1 recruiting class fueling both sides of the ball, plus a portal haul that added defensive back Jontez Williams and defensive lineman Alex VanSumeren to a unit still searching for answers up front. UCLA's turnaround under Chesney is real and the buzz around Westwood has genuinely shifted, but asking a first-year staff to beat a Big Ten heavyweight in a rivalry setting is still a tall order.
USC Trojans
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Fully healthy — no injuries to report
UCLA Bruins
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Fully healthy — no injuries to report
Records won't tell the whole story here. This is still the Crosstown Showdown, still a game both fan bases circle every year, and for Chesney's Bruins, playing spoiler against a playoff-hopeful USC team would be the loudest possible statement to close out year one.
