Here's Why Some UW Followers View USC as the Most Hated Rival

USC, not Oregon, once was the University of Washington's most hated football rival. The Trojans used to show up with this unmistakable air of superiority, one of the most annoying college bands found anywhere and a roster always full of No. 1 draft picks pounding their chests.

While the Huskies and Ducks annually fight a neighborhood turf war and make it personal, USC had a habit of showing up, coldly spoiling nearly everything elite the UW tried to do and having it be as impersonal as can be.

By our estimation, the Trojans have cost the Huskies three national championships.

The current UW fan base without question expresses its greatest disdain for the one-state-over Ducks whenever and however it can, but the older generation of supporters still finds no greater satisfaction than when the Huskies take down Hollywood, ah, make that USC.

The school with the outdated Trojan mascot, "Victory" fight song with corresponding wagging fingers and unlimited trust funds has always treated the Huskies like they were some unrefined distant relatives from the wrong side of the family, meant to be used as a door mat.

Since they first met exactly 100 years ago, the Trojans have spoiled more good times for the Huskies than anyone else, cost them more high-end accomplishments and made no absolutely apologies for it.

However, second-year Husky leader Kalen DeBoer isn't feeling it. He coaches only in the moment, leaving the past history for the fans and media members to remember and debate.

"For this 2023 team, really nothing from last year matters, other than the lessons that we take from last year," DeBoer said. "Definitely going back before last year doesn't mean a lot. It doesn't mean we don't want to make amends for what has happened in the past. Sure, we love our alumni that set the stage for us to do what we have and the attrition we have, as well.

"But for us, this is about the 2023 Huskies and us just being in the moment right now and have a big game against a very good football team in USC."

For everyone else, consider that these teams met in the 1943 Rose Bowl, in the only matchup pairing up conference members and caused by World War II travel restrictions, and USC took a 29-0 victory over the previously unbeaten Huskies.

Both schools would later employ the great Hugh McElhenny for his extraordinary running-back talents — and employed is the correct way to describe his relationships with each of them.

A California native, McElhenny spent part of a year at USC, ineligible because because he didn't have a foreign-language credit, but he was getting paid under the table supposedly to water the grass around the Tommy Trojan statue.

When the school stopped putting extra cash in his pocket, McElhenny headed for junior college for a year and then agreed to be well-compensated by the Huskies significantly over and above the standard scholarship payout.

USC beat the McElhenny-led Huskies 40-24 in 1949 and 20-13 in 1951, both in Seattle, while losing the middle game 28-13 in Los Angeles.

In 1959, the Trojans likely cost the 10-1 and Rose Bowl-winning UW its first real opportunity at claiming a national championship in 1959. They scored eight points over the final four minutes and handed Jim Owens' team its lone defeat, 22-15, at midseason at Husky Stadium.

Two years later, USC helped bring the defending two-time Rose Bowl champion and ultra-confident UW program back to earth by forcing a 0-0 tie in Husky Stadium.

The following season in 1962 — in the only matchup in which these two came in as top 10 ranked teams — the No. 9 Huskies lost 14-0 to the No. 3 Trojans in Los Angeles. It marked the UW's only loss that season though it was twice tied. USC went unbeaten and won the national championship.

The John McKay-coached Trojans thereafter became a college football juggernaut and beat the Jim Owens-directed Huskies 10 consecutive times from 1965 to the end of Owens' UW career in 1974.

Along the way, USC brought much trumpeted junior-college running back O.J. Simpson to Husky Stadium in 1967 to show off his skills. He went over the right side early in the game and snapped off an 86-yard touchdown run, going east to west, to send the UW on its way to a 23-6 loss. The versatile Simpson ran for two scores and threw for a third while rushing 30 times for 235 yards.

A year later in Los Angeles, Simpson was limited to a more mundane 71 yards rushing on 17 carries but he scored the game-winning touchdown on a 9-yard run with 4:04 left in the Trojans' 14-7 decision.

USC next proceeded to take some of the fun out of the swashbuckling Sonny Sixkiller era in 1970-72. The Trojans won both games they played against the immensely popular quarterback with the rifle arm and the great name, 28-25 in L.A. and 13-12 in Seattle, and got off easy when Sixkiller was injured as a senior and didn't play.

The UW's legendary Don James walked away with a 9-8 career coaching record against the Trojans, but they spoiled his first chance at capturing a national championship.

In 1984, his No. 1-ranked Huskies took a 9-0 record into L.A. and lost a tough one 16-7 to No. 14 USC — their only setback in a highly motivated season in which they toppled No. 2 Michigan 20-11 in Ann Arbor and No. 3 Oklahoma 28-17 in the Orange Bowl in Miami.

Two years later, the Huskies were ranked No. 6 and USC was 12th nationally when James' team dropped a 20-10 decision at Memorial Coliseum.

Into the new millennium, UW football went through its darkest decade with six consecutive losing seasons before it hand-selected Steve Sarkisian as coach to make the program whole again. The Sark era lasted five seasons.

In 2013, Sarkisian was hired away by USC, which was especially noteworthy because he became the first UW football coach in 57 years to use the Montlake job as a stepping stone to find another. Everyone else in charge in that time either retired or got fired.

In 2016, the Trojans handed the UW its last major disappointment of the series. USC was 6-3 and unranked when it came to Husky Stadium in one of the most hyped games of the long-running series. Accompanied by the ESPN College GameDay crew and the network's No. 1 broadcast team, the men of Troy faced Chris Petersen's 9-0 and No. 4-ranked entry — and dished out a bitter 26-13 defeat to the Huskies.

To add to the misery that day, the UW lost superlative linebacker Azeem Victor to a broken leg and were never quite the same team again even while advancing to the College Football Playoff and facing unbeaten Alabama, which lost to once-beaten Clemson 35-31 in the title game.

Considering all of the circumstances involved, USC might have denied the Huskies a third national title opportunity that day simply by diluting the defense of the speedy and game-breaking Victor.

So here we go again, with an unbeaten and fifth-ranked UW team (8-0 overall, 5-0 Pac-12), coached by DeBoer and riding a 15-game win streak, that will travel to Los Angeles to play No. 24 USC (7-2, 5-1) with everything on the line again.

Nearly three months ago, the Trojans fired an opening salvo by hiring away Husky athletic director Jennifer Cohen and a pair of her associate ADs in Jay Hilbrands and Jason Cappadoro, effectively using the UW as an employment agency.

The Huskies still can hold up a national championship or two (1960 and 1991, depending how you view that sometimes customized and self-serving process), which meant that they had to get past USC each time to reach a glorious pinnacle.

They've topped the Trojans in four of their past seven meetings, though these teams haven't played since 2019, which was three UW football coaches ago.

Yet no matter how you add it up, compute it or dissect it, the Huskies owe these guys — with their movie-lot connections, their generous NIL packages worth far more than McElhenny was ever paid and a healthy 52-30-4 series advantage — a lot more payback than anyone else they've played. Even the Ducks.

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