BERKELEY, Calif. — To the rest of college football, No. 1 Southern California is a monolithic winning machine with 31 straight victories and designs on a third straight national title.
To the Golden Bears, the Trojans mostly are their high-school friends and opponents from all across their home state. They're talented but hardly unbeatable — as California showed two years ago in USC's last loss.
"In California, football is kind of a small world," said Cal linebacker Ryan Foltz, who went to the same high school as two USC players. "It helps to know that they're just a bunch of college kids just like us. There's a lot of pride that we were the last team to knock them off. We take pride in always playing well against these guys."
USC (9-0, 6-0 Pac-10) is back at sold-out Memorial Stadium on Saturday for another meeting with the Bears (6-3, 3-3), who fell out of the rankings this week for the first time since 2003 after their third loss in four games.
But Cal still has a mental foothold on the Trojans, who have been perfect since that triple-overtime, 34-31 loss in Berkeley in 2003. New quarterback Matt Leinart and emerging freshman star Reggie Bush fell behind early and never got ahead of the fired-up Bears in a game that stretched well past sundown.
"I know Cal has had a great time with this fact," USC coach Pete Carroll said. "They've had a lot of fun with it. I'd like to not let them have so much fun with it. We'd like to win the game and put that one behind us a little bit."
According to Carroll, there was an additional factor in the Trojans' loss: They arrived in Strawberry Canyon 45 minutes earlier than necessary, leaving the players twiddling their thumbs.
"I found myself standing on the top of the stadium looking at Marin County," said Carroll, a Marin native. "I'm waving to home and that kind of crazy stuff, just killing time. We kind of lost our edge, and it's not the nicest locker room in the world."