ASU Football: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly vs USC

Oct 4, 2022 - 10:37 PM

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Tradition, legacy, and pride. Those characteristics sit on the parthenon of USC football. The Trojans, the epitome of a sleeping giant from 2008-2021, has seemingly been awoken by Lincoln Riley and his aggressive approach to winning.

The Devils lost, and put up a fight, but still ran into the buzzsaw that is Caleb Williams, Jordan Addison and Travis Dye. I had the opportunity to go down to the city of angels and fully take in the experience that the Trojans, as well as the Coliseum, had to offer.

The Good-The Coliseum

When I say that you can feel the tradition from the ground up at the Coliseum, I mean it. As a football historian and romanticist of sorts, the Coliseum is everything that I imagined. The history and legacy of USC football can be felt, and as they played clips of Marcus Allen, Willie McGinest, Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart celebrating enormous wins on the grass of their home stadium, I was enthralled. The urge to scream out, “fight on” was real, and the atmosphere and pride in Trojan football was contagious.

The Good continued-the hot dogs

Being from Chicago, identifying a good hot dog is a built in strength of mine. Well, outside of the Coliseum lining the sidewalks of campus, hot dog venders sold their bacon wrapped franks topped with grilled peppers and onions all throughout the night. I only was able to eat one due to time constraints, but I could have eaten 12. It was delicious, and I was trying to convince some of them to come back to Tempe with me.

The Bad-Jealousy

With how amazing the Coliseum was, and the tailgates throughout USC’s campus, I couldn’t help but feel envious. The traditions and pride of being a Trojan fan, student, or alum on game day is something that ASU has lost. The excitement and pride for game day in Los Angeles was something that I had never felt in Tempe, to no fault of the Sun Devil faithful. For that, I blame the team. Sun Devil Stadium doesn’t feel alive, and the team just hasn’t done enough to ignite a fanbase that so desperately wants to feel the way that the Trojan fans feel about their team.

The Coliseum was amazing, as was Caleb Williams, and the experience had me enthralled.

The Ugly-No moral victories

Okay, I get that this isn’t really ugly, and moral victories aren’t real, but the Sun Devils played hard. Down four points at halftime, the entire team played gritty, and punched way above their weight class. Shaun Aguano did everything he could to get his team a shocking win in SoCal, but it wasn’t meant to be. In the end, the Trojans were just way more talented. Thats the way it is sometimes, and the Devils left with a fourth straight loss.