Holy cow. Is this really true? From the Sporting News:

Apparently USC does not want to be referred to as "Southern Cal". Well, since when does a team get to decide what I call it? Look, win thirty-some games in a row, win a couple of national titles, and recruit the most dominant players in the land every year, and maybe I'll give you that respect. Uh, never mind. Would you prefer "USC" or "University of Southern California"? And from Wiki: USC is often identified as "Southern Cal" by the media, much to the chagrin of the school's sports information department, which specifically requests in every media guide that the school not be referred to as "Southern Cal" in order to avoid association with the University of California, Berkeley (known as "Cal"). If this is true then we should just call this community college just "Southern Cal" from now on.

What a bunch of doofuses. The best part of this story in terms of following football via blogs, the blogpoll has USC listed at "Southern Cal."