Successful Trojans: Undefeated classes versus UCLA

This is a list largely dominated by some of the better athletes of their time while with the USC Trojans.

This is also a large list based upon that fact that it coincides with the first day of my one-week summer vacation before we get in the heat of the content-churning days of the midsummer and fall seasons. We’ll be back at it the second(ish) week of July with a ton of new content ideas, fresh perspectives and hopefully some news on more athletics returning to campus.

Until then, however, feast your eyes on our next SB Nation Rivalry Week post, as we take a look at those classes of athletes who went undefeated against UCLA in their time on campus.

This list starts with Reggie Bush, and the widely documented success he had in his brief tenure at USC. He went undefeated in his time against UCLA and finished his time with the following stats against UCLA:

Carries: 45
Rushing Yards: 474
Rushing Touchdowns: 4
Receptions: 8
Receiving Yards: 105
Returns: 7
Return Yards: 125
Return Touchdowns: 1
Total Touches: 60
Total Yards: 704
Total Touchdowns: 5
Average Touches Per Game vs UCLA: 20
Average Yards Per Play vs UCLA: 11.7
Average Yards Per Game vs UCLA: 234.6
Average Points Per Game vs UCLA: 10.0

Most recently, there’s the class of 2010-11 athletes that went undefeated in their time against UCLA. That list includes:

Tyron Smith, Jurrell Casey, Jordan Cameron (because he didn’t play football in 2006 before transferring in), Allen Bradford, Malcolm Smith, Matt Kalil, Nick Perry, Rhett Ellison among others.

Then there’s the entire set of athletes from the 2004 and 2005 classes, who even if they redshirted a year, never tasted defeat against UCLA during the seven-game winning streak from 1999 to 2005.

That’s a list that is even more harrowing for opponents:

Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, Winston Justice, LenDale White, Frostee Rucker, Dominique Byrd, Darnell Bing, David Kirtman, LaJuan Ramsey, Fred Matua, Mike Williams, Mike Patterson, Shaun Cody, Lofa Tatupu, Matt Cassel, Manuel Wright and many more. Current wide receivers coach and a certain receiver who left campus as the school’s leader in receptions at the time also never tasted defeat against UCLA as Keary Colbert saw a perfect record against the Bruins.

Technically, the class of 1991 also never tasted defeat, but there’s a tie in there, so we won’t count them for now.

The class of 1980 saw wins in 1976, 1977, 1978 and again in 1979 so names like Anthony Munoz, Brad Budde, Charles White, Larry McGrew, Myron Lapka, Ray Butler, Dennis Johnson and Paul McDonald also never tasted defeat against their rivals.

And as far back as we can remember, the graduating classes of 1950, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1942, 1941, 1940, 1939, 1938 each never saw a loss against UCLA as well.

There are many others not listed above that never tasted defeat against UCLA and that’s the point: It’s almost impossible to track down every athlete who never lost a game to the Bruins in their time on campus.

It was a mission to find as many noteworthy names as I could. I could list out the entire rosters, at some points, but that’s no way to start a vacation. I’d rather just list the NUMEROUS classes that never saw defeat.

Now, that’s a great way to start a vacation, if you ask me.

‘Til next, next week.