No. 17 USC used a dominant second half to earn a 29-10 win over crosstown rival UCLA at the Coliseum Saturday, retaining the Victory Bell.
At the end of a flawed and frustrating season, in the final minutes of a rivalry matchup that mattered purely for pride, King Miller took a handoff and saw nothing but open field in front of him.
All night long — all season long, really — very little had come easy for USC against UCLA. The Trojans struggled often at the line of scrimmage. Discipline lapsed. Mistakes snowballed. It was, for a while, a microcosm of what made USC’s season so uneven.
But through it all, Miller’s magic was constant. Ever since he stepped in for the Trojans’ top backs, two months earlier, the walk-on running back was USC’s biggest bright spot. And in that moment, with the final minutes running down and the Trojans in need of one final knockout blow, here was Miller sprinting all alone, with only the roar of the Coliseum behind him.
His 41-yard score finally put the Bruins away for good, ending USC’s nightmarish regular season with a 29-10 victory.
For UCLA, Saturday marked the merciful end of a tumultuous season, one in which the Bruins fired coach DeShaun Foster after three games and may have said goodbye to the iconic stadium where they’ve played for half a century.
Behind interim coach Tim Skipper, the Bruins showed some signs of life midseason. They won three games in a row, including a stunning upset of Penn State at the Rose Bowl. But that momentum quickly faded, as UCLA lost five straight to finish the season.
