"Bring It"

The clock was stopped. It wasn't even a play.

There was 5:52 left in Saturday's game at the Rose Bowl, and USC's offense was waiting on its sidelines for play to resume. The Trojans, who began the game within grasp of a national title berth, stood around like a group of tourists at LAX trying to find their bus after having had their luggage stolen.

Suddenly, a few of their teammates on defense ran on to the field, and began bumping bodies and jostling their teammates. Within seconds, the crowd of Cardinal and Gold had swelled to a mosh pit of about 50 players, and now the USC crowd in the south end zone was screaming along trying to light a fire under its team.

On the other side of the field, UCLA's players had just left their own huddle in which head coach Karl Dorrell had delivered a simple message: This is exactly where everyone in Blue and Gold should want to be - in a position to finish off USC in the exact same circumstances, fourth quarter, close game, that they had faced, and misfired on, in the past.

When the Bruins broke that huddle, the players looked across the field and saw USC getting animated. So they walked, en masse - quarterback Patrick Cowan from St. John Bosco, defensive ends Bruce Davis and Justin Hickman, wideout Marcus Everett, freshman corner Alterraun Verner from Mayfair - out to the hash mark on their side of the field, and looked right at USC's mass of helmets, and said, collectively, bring it.

The electricity in that moment could keep California glowing for years.

For USC fans, it was hard to imagine a more galling conclusion to the regular season. Knocked down and harassed all afternoon by a UCLA defense that had given the Trojans much more than they bargained for, Booty finally seemed to have something going. In 12 plays that included a pair of third-down conversions and one fourth-down conversion, the junior quarterback had driven the offense to the Bruins 18-yard-line. Though the Trojans had been outplayed, it looked like they would be able to filch a win, and tiptoe into the national championship game for the third time in four years.

But on third-and-4 with 1:20 to play, McNeal heard "Sam Gold" in the huddle and pinned his ears back. "If the running back releases, I need to pick him up," he told me after the game. "If he stays in, I knock him into the quarterback."

As it was, Booty took a short drop and threw in the direction of wide receiver Steve Smith. Timing his leap, McNeal thrust his right arm in the air and tipped the pass up, located the ball, spun 180 degrees, dove and plucked it from the air a millimeter from the tips of the blades of Bermuda Bullseye -- the grass favored by Rose Bowl agronomists.

With that UCLA's first victory over the Trojans in eight years secured, and the college football world was thrown, once again, into disorder. When the tectonic plates finished shifting, the Trojans found themselves headed right back to the Rose Bowl, a venue they once owned as if it were a Coliseum annex, but which has become, over the last 11 months, an oval tomb for their national title ambitions.