On Saturday night, there was a blockbuster trade in the world of sports, as the Detroit Tigers sent superstar pitcher Tarik Skubal to the Los Angeles Dodgers. With the back-to-back champions acquiring perhaps the best pitcher in the sport, the Dodgers have firmly established themselves as baseball’s new villains.
At this point, pretty much everyone outside of Los Angeles hates the Dodgers—and understandably so. The Dodgers and their fans, however, do not care one bit. In fact, they enjoy the fact that everyone wants to take them down, and have fully embraced the villain role.
Two decades ago, that was the case with another LA team: USC football. Pete Carroll’s Trojans of the 2000s were some of the most iconic villains that college football has
ever seen.
With stars Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush dominating on the field and celerities such as Will Ferrell and Snoop Dogg on the sidelines, USC was the envy of college football. The rest of the country tuned in every week just to hopefully watch the Trojans lose (which did not happen very often). USC fans, meanwhile, embraced the hate, and were not afraid to gloat after big victories.
Unfortunately, much of that USC villain energy has faded over the past 20 years. The Trojans briefly got a bit of it back in 2022 when they hired Lincoln Riley away from Oklahoma and announced their move to the Big Ten, but USC has simply not been good enough the past few seasons for the average college football fan to hate the program.
If the Trojans can start winning again, however, it will not take very long for the hate to come back and them to be viewed as villains again. USC fans are eagerly awaiting the day when that happens.
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This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Like the current Dodgers, USC football was once the West Coast villain
