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LOS ANGELES — As USC head coach Lincoln Riley delivered somber postgame remarks in an echo-filled room in the underbelly of the LA Memorial Coliseum, Utah's locker room was lively and raucous.
The music was turned to 11, and it was difficult to drown out the visiting team's celebrations following Utah's game-winning field goal to give the Utes its fourth consecutive win over the Trojans, and the last for the foreseeable future.
Maybe the Utah players turned the music up even louder to rub salt in the wounds — a win on the field wasn't enough, not this one.
The party had reached a fever pitch after an already extended celebration on the field in which the team swarmed placekicker Cole Becker for having ice in his veins and drilling the definitive 38-yard field goal. As dejected USC fans exited their seats and moved out of the stadium, Utah fans quickly lined the first 10 rows or so of the sideline next to the Utes players to add to the pandemonium of the night.
Nobody wanted to leave after a cathartic night in which Utah beat the 2023 Pac-12 preseason favorite — again.
The matchup may not have met the traditional characteristics of a true rivalry given the limited number of games played and the distance between the two schools, but nobody on the field Saturday thought it was anything less than a rivalry game. The passion and dislike was palpable on both sides of the field.
In the last two meetings — both of which came in the 2022 season — the Trojans faithful had their excuses as to why Utah won, citing favorable calls from the refs or a hamstring injury that limited its Heisman Trophy winning quarterback. But Saturday night at the LA Memorial Coliseum, there were no excuses to be had … at least from the home team.
Utah beat USC for the fourth consecutive time with a severely hampered roster — Utah's built-in excuse — and did so while limiting what head coach Kyle Whittingham described as a team with "tons of athletes, athletes everywhere, speed everywhere."
Utah did it in Salt Lake City, again in Las Vegas, and, for the second time in as many attempts, even in Los Angeles. Four wins in three different states.
"Bottom line is, we found a way to win," Whittingham said. "That's a heck of a football team we just beat tonight ... and we did it with toughness and grit, which, again, is our MO."
Always one to downplay his hand and not get too excited about a singular result, especially one that came midway through a long season, even Whittingham couldn't contain the importance of the win Saturday night.
For a brief moment, the platitudes about it being just one game on the schedule were thrown out the window and Whittingham admitted with a smile — more so a smirk — that it was one of the top-five wins of his coaching career.
Recency bias or not, Whittingham was not immune to hearing the conversations surrounding a game USC had circled from the time Utah beat them in the Pac-12 championship game last season. It was difficult to avoid hearing Caleb Williams talk about the one game he wanted the most at Pac-12 media day, or the fact the Trojans felt a Big Ten invitation made them superior to the Utes.
Whittingham saved the receipts, and then delivered the death blow — again.
"It felt really good — probably top-five ever," he said. "To beat a program that has as much talent as they do four times in a row, our kids just — I can't say enough good things about our players in that locker room over there.
"They've got a Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback, so they're gonna make some things, and that's just the way it is. But we've got ourselves a pig farmer at quarterback, so we're proud of that guy, too. They love him and what a warrior he is. We saw that grit that he has on that last drive, was QB runs, and found a way to win; that's what this team is this year."
The importance of the game — and rivalry-like atmosphere — was mutual for USC. The loss was bitter enough that Riley elected to isolate his players from the media and made the decision to not let them speak after the game.
It was a decision that broke protocol, and one that left Riley defensive in his postgame comments — the one where Utah's music continued to blare as a nagging reminder — about the expectations of the program he was hired to lead.
"As gut-wrenching a defeat as I can remember in my career," Riley said.
The series ends with the teams tied 7-7 in the Pac-12 era, though USC has only four wins over Utah in the last decade. With the two teams going their separate ways in 2024, don't expect the Trojans to pick up the phone anytime soon for a potential rematch.
The once budding rivalry will soon just be a footnote.
