Nov. 27, 2006
LOS ANGELES - Everyone knows what is at stake when UCLA meets USC on its home turf in the annual intercity showdown between two of college football's most celebrated rivals. Yes, the winner on Saturday (Dec. 2) will claim year-long city bragging rights and possession of the Victory Bell. Certainly, there is the matter of bowl berths on the line and recruiting wars to be won.
However, there is more to this L.A. story that goes beyond the final outcome of the Trojan-Bruin game at the Rose Bowl. It's called the Lexus Gauntlet.
The winner on Championship Saturday will earn 10 critical points toward capturing the 150-pound, pewter-gilded trophy presented by the Southern California Lexus Dealers. The UCLA-USC football game is the only single Lexus Gauntlet event worth 10 points in the head-to-head, all-sports competition between these two prestigious universities. Kick-off is set for 1:30 p.m.
UCLA owns an early 20-5 lead over USC in the Lexus Gauntlet standings after six contests in the year-round battle for college sports supremacy in Los Angeles. Defending Gauntlet champion USC, which has never lost the rivalry football game since the inception of the Lexus Gauntlet, leads the series dating back to 1929, 41-27-7.
The Trojans and Bruins compete against each other in 18 sports in the Lexus Gauntlet. The 18 sports are worth a total of 110 points. Five Gauntlet points are awarded to the winner of each sport's season series or, for those sports that don't meet head-to-head, the team that places higher in the conference championship. Men's and women's basketball and women's volleyball are also 10-point sports but include multiple games. To win the Lexus Gauntlet trophy outright, 57.5 points are needed to clinch.
This year's rivalry football game may add another classic chapter to the epic USC-UCLA story. That remains to be determined. However, without question, Saturday's Bruin-Trojan game will play a pivotal role in deciding the outcome of the next Lexus Gauntlet champion.
The chase of the 2007 Lexus Gauntlet will resume with a hoops doubleheader on Saturday (Jan 13). USC men's basketball will host rival UCLA in the first meeting on the hardwood between the two schools at the newly-opened Galen Center at 11:30 a.m. Later that afternoon, the Women of Troy take on UCLA at Pauley Pavilion. The women's game tips-off at 2 p.m.
In the five years of the Lexus Gauntlet competition, the rival schools have alternated winning the trophy. USC won the inaugural trophy in 2002, then in 2004 and again in 2006. UCLA captured the rivalry's crown jewel in 2003 and 2005.
The Southern California Lexus Dealers are proud to be the leading sponsors of both UCLA and USC athletic departments as well as the exclusive title sponsor of every USC-UCLA athletic competition. For more than 80 years, these champion rivals have competed for the ultimate city-wide title of number one. Now, based on the practice of knights who challenged each other to duel by throwing their armored gauntlets to the ground, Lexus has issued the absolute challenge: the Lexus Gauntlet competition.