Hogging the Spotlight

Close your eyes and you can tell it’s USC-UCLA week just by the sound.

On Bruin Walk in Westwood on Monday, against the background din of a man expressing his hatred for the Trojans by pounding on a cardinal-colored car with a sledgehammer, a woman’s voice offered, “SC voodoo dolls, one dollar!”

Inside the J.D. Morgan center the buildup continued.

When UCLA Coach Bob Toledo wasn’t calling Saturday’s matchup a “big game,” he was calling it a “big, big game.”

Then came a noise that was so jarring it sounded like a car shifting from fourth gear into reverse.

When asked if a win over USC would make this season, Toledo said: “I don’t know if it makes it. I think we’ve had a pretty good season already. I think [a victory] just helps to add to it.”

ER-AR-GR-CRACHANK!

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Toledo’s statement rings true only if the Bruins want to remain a nice little team. If they expect more -- if the school and its fans demand more -- then UCLA has to beat USC this Saturday.

It would be a chance for a UCLA program that was in the national championship picture at the midpoint of last season to reel in a USC outfit that has since raced on by.

It would make a statement that mediocrity isn’t tolerated. Steve Lavin was right when he said last week that “you’re not allowed to rebuild at UCLA” for basketball. The same should apply for the football team. The school offers more than enough to attract sufficient talent (case in point: Monday’s weather) to remain a fixture in the top 10.

Instead, the Bruins have barely crawled back into the top 25.

They have shaken off a trio of disappointing losses to fashion a 7-3 record, a 4-2 mark in the Pacific 10 and a third-place standing in the conference. They’re proud that they bounced back from a poor start to position themselves for a bowl game.

Truthfully, there should be disappointment that there isn’t more at stake this weekend. UCLA’s 31-30 loss to Oregon on Oct. 12 was bad enough at the time; it’s since been downgraded. Oregon left the Rose Bowl with a 6-0 record, which meant all of the attention went to some questionable play-calling by Toledo and a missed 46-yard field goal by Chris Griffith with 1:54 left to play. Since then the Ducks have lost four of five, including three at Autzen Stadium, which in retrospect means we should wonder why the Oregon-UCLA game was that close in the first place.

And after the Bruins wasted a great defensive effort and two blocked punts in a 17-12 loss at California on Oct. 19, even Toledo later viewed that as a game they “maybe should have won anyway” despite losing their top two quarterbacks to injuries.

So there’s no valid reason that this game isn’t more important, that it isn’t a showdown for the Rose Bowl. (On the Trojans’ end, their kicking miscues at Washington State are to blame as well.)

Instead, all of the major implications belong to the Trojans. They still can input their data into the bowl championship series computers, hit enter and potentially wind up in the Rose or another BCS bowl.

For UCLA it’s not so much about bowl destinations (tough to see the fans getting worked up about the Holiday, Sun or Insight bowls) as it is about pride. The seniors, such as tight end Mike Seidman, don’t want to go their entire college careers without a victory over USC.

The three-game losing streak to their cross-town rival is “a thorn in my foot,” Seidman said.

It seems as if the days when UCLA ran things, winning eight in a row against USC, are ancient history.

The coaches “don’t even bring it up,” Seidman said.

But if the Bruins get stuck in too long a stretch going the other way I’m sure the USC coaches will be talking “streak” all the time during recruiting visits.

The Trojans are favored to make it four.

Toledo started working on the story line as soon as he sat down.

He called the seventh-ranked Trojans “the best SC team that I’ve seen since I’ve been here at UCLA.”

Toledo, in his seventh year as head coach after two years as offensive coordinator, went as far as saying USC “might be the best team that we’ve played since I’ve been here.”

He praised USC’s coaching, defense, running backs, Troy Polamalu, Carson Palmer, even the punter.

So you see the setup: those Bruins will sure try hard against those big ol’ Trojans, but maybe we shouldn’t expect too much of them.

But we know better. We know that there’s no such thing as an underdog when USC and UCLA play. We know it shouldn’t matter if UCLA’s senior quarterback, Cory Paus, is still injured. (This is the moment for unheralded backups to shine, right, John Barnes?)

We know that if seeing USC’s uniforms and hearing their fight song aren’t enough to motivate the Bruins, they’re also seeking revenge for last year’s 27-0 USC victory that represented the low point of the Toledo era.

“Getting shut out by SC ... it doesn’t get much worse,” Seidman said.

There’s that unavoidable buzz on campus. Toledo heard it. He saw it when he looked out the window and noticed the bear statue was under protective covering to deter would-be pranksters.

His players can sense it too.

“It’s a lot bigger than other weeks,” freshman tailback Tyler Ebell said. “There’s a lot more media attention and focus. I see that it’s a big deal.”

So big, in fact, that UCLA’s season is riding on it.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com.

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THE RIVALRY

USC vs. UCLA

Saturday, 12:30 p.m.

at Rose Bowl, Ch. 7