LOS ANGELES — Even now, Pete Carroll never has lost to UCLA in November. At this point, no straw is thin for USC to grasp.

And USC’s city domination holds for at least one more year, after this anxious 28-7 victory over the Bruins in the Coliseum on Saturday night, one that turned hostile at the end.
Only later will we learn if UCLA is really narrowing the gap, or if this was the Bruins’ best chance to beat USC for a while.
After all, USC’s three touchdowns were scored by guys who will return — two by running back Allen Bradford and one by linebacker Malcolm Smith. Quarterback Matt Barkley is back in 2010, too, as is most of a chastened defense.
The bookmakers rejected the whole notion that this was a game between near-equals, giving the Trojans a 13-point edge. And it’s true that UCLA’s 6-6 record was built on beating the impoverished. Only Tennessee, among the victims, had a winning record.
But Bruins fans could swear they were seeing palpable improvement, and they knew that only seven of the starting 22 in this game were seniors. UCLA’s defense had been successful on 34 of its 46 previous third-down situations, and UCLA had a plus-9 turnover ratio in its previous two games.
Meanwhile, USC was being outscored by its opponents in conference games (167 to 172) and hadn’t beaten anybody by more than one touchdown since Oct. 3 (Cal).
After a desultory first half that featured five punts apiece, USC had a 7-0 lead, but only because it staged its interception better. Linebacker Smith, easily the Trojans’ most influential player in the half, glided into the path of Kevin Prince’s slant pass and took it 62 yards for an untouched touchdown.
Of course, if Rick Neuheisel’s nascent coaching era at UCLA had a logo, it would be that of an enemy defensive back pick-sixing his way through the Bruins end zone.
Barkley arranged his interception more prudently, throwing to Alterraun Verner, who was tackled on the UCLA 23. That misfire followed a 28-yard pass to Anthony McCoy, USC’s longest play of the first half, and sort of summarized what’s been happening to Barkley lately.
Meanwhile, UCLA’s Brian Price was throwing aside any two blockers that USC threw at him, and neither Joe McKnight nor Allen Bradford could get past UCLA’s linebacker level. So it’s somewhat unfair to compare Barkley to his immediate USC predecessors until he is given a similar deck to deal.
USC opened the second half by sending the kickoff out of bounds, an infraction that should be punishable by waterboarding. But Prince eventually set up the Trojans nicely by throwing an interception to Will Harris. Allen Bradford, carrying the mail because Joe McKnight hurt himself again, finished the 29-yard drive.
Kevin Craft, director of last year’s UCLA nightmare, replaced Prince on the next drive. But this is why you can’t count on UCLA’s program to rise automatically, like yeast, on the strength of returning numbers. You need a quarterback to get you there. It seems reasonable to assume that the UCLA quarterback who leads this team to significance is someone we haven’t yet seen.
Craft underlined that point early in the fourth quarter, after a bizarre replay ruling canceled out a gain to the USC 21. He tried to find Rosario to his left and somehow didn’t see Josh Pinkard in front of him, and Pinkard made a fairly routine pick, the 23rd of Craft’s UCLA career.
But there’s always time enough to at least threaten USC these days, and the Bruins rolled 13 plays to their first touchdown with 5:41 left. Chane Moline, toppling skeptics by the week, ran through Devon Kennard for the final two yards, and now the Trojans only led, 14-7.
That’s when Barkley got it together. Quick sideline passes got the Trojans to midfield, and Barkley hit Ronald Johnson for 20 yards, and Bradford ran through a bunch of ball-talking Bruins to the two and then barreled in for the touchdown, again looking like USC’s most honest runner.
At the end, after Barkley knelt, Neuheisel took an indulgent time out. Carroll, accepting Neuheisel’s belief that the game was not yet over, responded by ordering a bomb, and Barkley hit Damian Williams for a 48-yard score.
(Wouldn’t it be fun to sit in on these Pac-10 football coaching meetings next spring?)
That touchdown, along with some customary yapping, infuriated several Bruins, and UCLA coaches had serious difficulty restraining Rahim Moore, Reggie Carter and Akeem Ayers (who was woofing with USC’s Jurrell Casey) from charging the USC sideline.
No, the Cross-town Showdown has plenty of friction to it.
Imagine if the two franchises were actually close.