Inside Look: The #’s between USC-UCLA

We’re continuing the trend here — after all it is Rivalry Week at SB Nation all week long.

That’s just more content and more times to be able to showcase the USC Trojans dominance over UCLA.

So, for today’s look, we’re going to take a look at all the numbers that we can for the rivalry, both historically and recently.

We’ve taken a look at the comprehensive history between the two, why it sucks to be U (cla) and the biggest USC victories over UCLA, now it’s time to go a bit further into the numbers.

We all know that USC is 50-32-7 lifetime against UCLA. From our previous writings, we all know as well that USC has more multiple-possession victories (33) than UCLA has total victories in the series. We also know that USC has multiple 30-plus point victories over its rival.

Did you know, though, that USC has outscored UCLA in six of the nine decades they’ve played games in? This doesn’t include the 1929 shellacking against UCLA, 76-0. The total points scored in each decade are:

1930s: 120-27

1940s: 247-132

1950s: 65-156

1960s: 184-120

1970s: 250-146

1980s: 185-195

1990s: 217-264

2000s: 348-155

2010s: 323-252

You add it all up and you see that USC has outscored UCLA, 2,015-1,447.

Even during UCLA’s run of eight straight wins from 1991-1998, they only managed to outscore USC in that decade by a mere 47 points. USC has two games with a margin of defeat that high alone!

Since 1999, USC has outscored UCLA 688-414 and that’s two shutout victories in that span. Important to note as well, USC has shutout UCLA six times, compared to UCLA’s three shutout victories, all of which came in the 1950s.

USC shut out UCLA in the following matchups:

September 28, 1929: 76-0
September 27, 1930: 52-0
September 23, 1943: 20-0
November 22, 1947: 20-0
November 17, 2001: 27-0
November 26, 2011: 50-0

By that math, we’re due for a shutout victory in 2021. Now that’s something to keep your eyes peeled on.

We’ll be back tomorrow with more on the USC-UCLA rivalry!