A PERFECT 10 RIVALS' 1996 CONTEST -- WHICH INCLUDED A RALLY AND A CONTROVERSIAL FINISH -- CULMINATED A DECADE OF CLOSE CALLS BETWEEN THE TWO.

Byline: BILLY WITZ Staff Writer

When UCLA safety Anthony Cobbs reached up and grabbed USC quarterback Matt Koffler's fourth-down, desperation floater in the back of the end zone, it ended the longest and arguably most dramatic chapter in USC-UCLA history, a 48-41 double-overtime victory.

Or did it?

In the pandemonium that ensued -- Bruins running around in amazement, Trojans tossing helmets and sinking to their knees in disbelief -- nobody seemed to notice that Cobbs simply dropped the ball to join his teammates.

As the officials watched, whistles in their mouths, there it sat on the Rose Bowl turf.

It was an easy enough detail to overlook considering UCLA had scored 17 points in the final 6 1/2 minutes, then blocked a field goal on the final play of regulation just to get to overtime.

It also escaped the attention of the Trojans, who were so tortured by their sixth straight loss in the rivalry -- one in which they survived an onside kick only to fumble the ball back to the seemingly helpless Bruins -- that star defensive lineman Darrell Russell suggested what USC really needed was a witch doctor.

``I kind of ran downfield just in case -- maybe the ball gets tipped,'' USC center Jonathan Himebauch said. ``Then when (Cobbs) caught it, everyone just assumed the game was over. The official just stood there. He never blew the whistle. I walked right by the football.''

Himebauch said he was sick when this was pointed out to him the next week by defensive coordinator Keith Burns.

Cobbs wasn't feeling too good, either, a couple days later when teammates Duval Hicks and Glenn Thompkins told him the play had been ruled a fumble, USC had recovered and the school was appealing the outcome.

``They got me good,'' Cobbs said.

It has been 10 years since that day, when R.Jay Soward was every bit as electric as Reggie Bush, when Koffler looked as if he'd be USC's answer to Norm Dow and John Barnes, and when the Bruins were the first to discover a left-handed quarterback who would own the town.

It's a day that will still cause Trojans fans to gnash their teeth at the mention of LaVale Woods and Adam Abrams, and Bruins fans to raise their glasses to Kusanti Abdul Salaam and Rodney Lee.

Mostly, though, it's a day that serves as a reminder of when USC and UCLA really was a rivalry.

Nowadays, USC has been so dominant, there isn't much sport in it.

The 1996 game concluded a 10-year span when the games were decided by a total of 49 points -- or two more than the Trojans won by last year, 66-19. Since Pete Carroll arrived six years ago, the Bruins' 29-24 defeat in 2005 is the only time they've lost by less than 25.

``The only thing I can hang my hat on them is at least we were close,'' said Koffler, who lost to UCLA all five years he was in school.

As good as USC has been, it used to be that in this rivalry you could throw the records out. Three times the Bruins beat Rose Bowl-bound USC teams and on another occasion tied them.

``They've had all the Heisman Trophy winners, but they've always had those names,'' said Lee, a reserve receiver whose diving, 23-yard catch set up the touchdown that forced overtime in 1996. ``They had Keyshawn Johnson, who was the best player in the country and they were going to the Rose Bowl (in 1995) but we weren't going to lose because of him. It didn't matter who had the better talent, it was who had more desire. We were the underdog, but we never heard it. I don't see that now.''

Lee is a good example of the type of stories that have been missing for much of this decade.

A former walk-on from Rancho Cucamonga, he'd begun the season as a starter, but a shoulder injury and the emergence of freshman Danny Farmer pushed him far down the bench.

He had four catches and was on the field so rarely that he gave his allotted tickets to the USC game -- usually reserved for his parents -- to a teammate.

``I didn't want to waste my parents' time,'' Lee said.

But when the team met the night before the game at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Pasadena, where they stayed before home games, UCLA's first-year coach Bob Toledo gave an impassioned speech about how the big players always showed up for both teams in this rivalry, but that the game was always decided by someone unknown, a little guy who stepped up.

``That moved me,'' said Lee, a Beverly Hills attorney. ``Even though it flew in the face of logic, it was like he was talking to me.''

As the game wore on, it wasn't the little guys making the big plays.

Sammy Knight, the defensive anchor for the Trojans, returned an interception 74 yards for a touchdown.

Soward, the dynamic freshman receiver, caught six passes for a school- record 260 yards and three touchdowns. Cade McNown and Jim McElroy were desperately playing pitch and catch to keep the Bruins in it -- in vain, it seemed.

When Soward ran past the UCLA defense and hauled in a 78-yard touchdown pass from Koffler, who had replaced injured starter Brad Otton, the Trojans led 38-17 four minutes into the fourth quarter.

The TV cameras followed Soward to the bench and he couldn't resist.

``I'm like, man, we're up 17points, there's not too much time,'' Soward recalled. ``Man, it's over. The streak is over.''

The Bruins closed within 38-31, but after a failed UCLA onside kick, USC picked up a first down and all that was left was to run three plays. But Woods was stripped of the ball by UCLA linebacker Danjuan Magee and Abdul Salaam recovered with 1:27 to play.

McNown completed twopasses and spiked the ball to stop the clock with just less than a minute left and the Bruins facing a third-and-5 at the USC 34-yard line.

The call came for a four-receiver set, one of three in the UCLA playbook that included Lee. From the right side of the formation, he dutifully ran a post-corner route, never expecting the ball his way.

But when he came out of his break, there was the ball -- thrown impossibly ahead of him, right at the sideline.

``I didn't see any defenders, I didn't see the sideline, I didn't hear anything,'' Lee said. ``I just saw the ball in the air and there wasn't anything that was going to stop me from getting the ball. It was a foregone conclusion: I was going to catch it.''

Lee laid out, horizontally, his arms fully extended and the ball stuck in his mitts as he slid across the sideline at the USC 11.

The little guy Toledo talked about had stepped up.

On the next play, Skip Hicks burst straight up the middle for a touchdown, tying the score with 39 seconds left in regulation.

Amid the bedlam afterward, Lee had another surprise in store. His parents, who'd been invited to the game that morning by some friends with extra tickets, were there to greet him outside the locker room.

Lee returned to anonymity his senior season, catching 12passes in a reserve role.

But not too long ago, he ran into McNown at a restaurant with a friend. The quarterback, by way of introductions, went into detail with his dinner guest about Lee's catch.

``Oh,'' said Terrell Owens. ``Maybe I should get your autograph.''

Ask Soward what he remembers about the 1996 game and it isn't what most people remember -- the three touchdowns catches and school-record 260 yards receiving that led to Toledo's postgame quip of the USC freshman: ``I sure hope Soward goes to the NFL next season.''

It is the one that got away.

``Basically, that game made me. It was what I was known for,'' Soward said. ``But I still feel bad about that game. What sticks out is the one I dropped. As great a day as I had, I still feel like I lost the game.''

After UCLA had taken a 48-41 lead in the second overtime, USC had third-and-4 at the UCLA 19.

Soward ran a quick out in the right flat and was wide open as Koffler delivered the ball right in stride. But as Soward turned up field, headed for the end zone and a third overtime, he dropped the ball. One play later, the game was over.

``That was like my whole career,'' Soward said. ``Playing too fast.''

Indeed, Soward's career has been one of promise unfulfilled. There was no match for his speed and elusiveness, but his hands were as unreliable as his behavior.

He spent his last two years mainly in Paul Hackett's doghouse. The Jacksonville Jaguars, lured by the possibilities, chose him with the 29th pick of the first round in 2000, but he was a disappointment on and off the field. A year later he was suspended by the NFL for marijuana and then alcohol use.

Soward could have applied for reinstatement, but that would have required a year of almost constant drug testing. ``I just said (expletive) it,'' he said.

For the past three years, he has played for the Toronto Argonauts of the CFL.

``I don't know if the spirit of god jumped in, but I know I played outside myself that day,'' Soward said of the '96 game. ``I don't care how many things Reggie Bush did, nobody ever had a game like that.''

If there was no hangover for USC -- the Trojans beat Notre Dame for the first time in 14 years the following week -- there was acarryover for UCLA.

Players and coaches have long said that the victory -- after winning just four games and twice blowing fourth-quarter leads -- was a catalyst for the school-record 20-game winning streak that began the next season.

``We were a mediocre team at best,'' said Kris Farris, a redshirt freshman offensive tackle. ``It wasn't a very good year and it wasn't like we had a lot of confidence -- and that's the way we played for 3(bul) quarters.''

Then something clicked.

``There were games all year where I'd given up sacks and that was part of the reason we lost and then about halfway through the fourth quarter, I got it in my head that I'm not going to be the reason we're going to lose that game,'' said Farris, who won the Outland Trophy as the nation's top lineman in 1998 and now works as a sales rep for a steel distributor in Carson. ``All of a sudden, Darrell Russell, who was wreaking havoc -- there was no way he was going to beat me.

``The turning point for me, I think was reflective of the turning point for the team. It gave us more confidence when we were preparing for the next season, it helped the perception of Cade that he could win and in '98 when we had all those close games, it gave us the confidence we could finish. That's why in the Miami game (a 49-45 loss that knocked UCLA out of the national championship game), even on the last play I think we all felt like, `Oh, yeah, we've got this.'''

When Koffler was a freshman, so far down the depth chart nobody gave him a clipboard to carry, he watched an unknown walk-on named JohnBarnes lead UCLA to a last-minute win over USC.

But when Otton was driven into the turf by Weldon Forde early in the fourth quarter, Koffler had something else in mind.

``Where's my helmet?'' he said.

Fortunately, the hit that knocked out Otton came on third down so Koffler had a few minutes to find his helmet and his wits. When Koffler went in, on the second play from scrimmage, he dropped back and threw a long bomb that hit Soward in stride for a 78-yard score.

Not bad for a guy who'd thrown 29 passes in his career 7/8 none of them meaningful.

``This was the opportunity I'd prepared 4 1/2-5 years for,'' said Koffler, now a coach at his alma mater, Rosemead High. ``It was a little nerve- wracking, but I looked at everyone in the huddle and said not to worry, we're going to try to win this thing. After that, it was just like high school.''

After the Bruins tied the score, Koffler gave the Trojans one last chance. His bomb to Chris Miller was complete for 39 yards to the UCLA 23 with 11 seconds left.

But Abrams, who had five field goals and two extra points blocked, had his 41-yard attempt knocked down by Phillip Ward -- bringing on the series' only overtime game.

``It means the world to me,'' Koffler said of the opportunity. ``I have two children now and they get to see it on TV. It's a memory that will last forever.''

For Cobbs, who caught Koffler's final pass, the memories endure, too. His career at UCLA was a mixed bag - he was moved from offense to defense and he considered transferring at one point.

``But when you beat USC five times and cap it off like that,'' said Cobbs, a teacher in Compton. ``How can it end any better?''

Funny he should ask.

You know, since there never was an official's whistle on that last play ...

``If they can get everybody together, we'll play another possession,'' Himebauch said. ``Let's see what we can come up with.''

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) USC receiver R. Jay Soward eases up in the end zone after scoring a touchdown in the 1996 game against UCLA.

(2) UCLA's players had reason to celebrate after a double-overtime victory against USC at the Rose Bowl in 1996.

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