L.A. TEAMS ARE HEADED FOR A BIG PAYOFF.

Byline: Michael Ventre

Tickets for the USC-UCLA game fluctuate in value, like stocks. On Saturday, they inched up. It is still not an investment sure enough to risk your children's education on, but banking on the Bruins and Trojans to give us a November to remember is now more than just wishful thinking.

The Trojans bounced back magnificently, slaughtering the Illini in Champaign 55-3. Of course, the Illini may just shorten their moniker to the Ill. If Illinois is a football factory, then you have just seen the tragedy of downsizing. Still, after USC's performance in the Meadowlands, in which Jimmy Hoffa looked hale and robust by comparison, this second-game performance was Hall of Fame material.

The Bruins did not come away with a victory, falling by 35-20, but at least they came away. Pre-game prognostications had them returning to Westwood from Knoxville in various Mason jars. Tennessee was supposed to put them on spits and consume them by halftime.

Instead, Bob Toledo's debut was remarkable for its lack of carnage. The Volunteers proved they are the better team but encountered more difficulty than the pollsters promised.

For the local teams, it was a Saturday of respect.

The Trojans went from absorbing a beating to being accused of running up the score. I don't know what John Robinson said to his counterpart after the game, but the mid-field handshake seemed so quick between he and Lou Tepper that you would probably need one of those newfangled, high-resolution tennis cams to capture it on video.

Robinson scoffed at the notion of piling it on, but Robinson scoffs at a lot of things. Tepper didn't make an issue of it. And frankly, if you don't want to get beat by 52 points, then get better.

The game was just what the Trojans needed. The offense clicked. The defense swarmed and hammered people and looked pretty darned aggressive. Either it's a glimpse of things to come, or a one-shot deal against an opponent that hasn't scored a touchdown since Dick Butkus pledged a frat.

When Brad Otton connected with Chris Miller for an 84-yard TD and a 7-3 edge, you felt the program turn a corner. Before that, when you looked at cardinal and gold, all you could see was Curtis Enis and Joe Paterno and a blot of blood red.

It was also wonderful to see Trojans tackling opponents. The wrapping of arms. The sting of shoulder pads upon shoulder pads. The crack of helmets. Oh, to long for the simple things. It is a relief to know that these lessons are still being taught at USC, and that the Penn State-Curtis Enis 10K was simply due to a collective bout with vertigo or a problem with depth perception.

``I'm sure I've had worse days,'' Tepper said, ``but this is as embarrassed with a performance as I've been in a long time.''

And Saturday was Tepper's 51st birthday. On his 51st birthday, he loses by 52. For his sake, let's hope this doesn't become an annual thing.

His words could have come out of Robinson's mouth after Penn State. It had been two weeks of hellish preparation, with constant reminders of how they tarnished the program in N.J., but the Trojans managed to recapture some dignity.

Like the Trojans, Toledo's bunch came into Saturday as a huge mystery. Unlike the Trojans, they hadn't played a game yet.

After Tennessee, you know this about these Bruins: They are not easily intimidated. A crowd of over 106,000 didn't cause the opening-day jitters that the Trojans spoke of at the Kickoff Classic. The new offense and defense did not look like a work-in-progress. The Vols are a quality team, and yet the Bruins never fell apart as had been predicted.

It was about as grand an entrance as a new head coach can make without winning.

Cade McNown will never be spoken of in the same breath as Peyton Manning, but he played on the same field with the same competitive fire. McNown did a splendid job of not getting his face plastered into the turf, of dumping off when taking a sack would have been disastrous, of taking a sack when dumping off would have been folly. If he plays this way all year, Toledo will be Coach of the Year in the Pac-10 and McNown will make people forget about Ryan Fien, if they haven't already.

Toledo's bag of trick plays didn't seem to be nearly as large or as handy as had been advertised. Good thing. Nobody wants to see a triple reverse being attempted when a posse of Volunteers is about to eviscerate the quarterback. Maybe when the season moves on, Toledo can try the Statue of Liberty play against a lesser team that is too young to remember it or too dumb to do anything about it.

What both USC and UCLA derived from this weekend is direction. Up. Forward. Whatever. At least when they joust late in the season, you can mark the date in September when the opening statements were made.

MEMO: Michael Ventre is a Daily News columnist.