What Is USC’s Biggest Game? : Bragging Rite: UCLA vs. USC Saturday, at Rose Bowl : Trojans: Notre Dame matchup has more national significance, but UCLA rivalry means everything in Los Angeles.

To UCLA football players and fans, beating USC might be the most important thing in the world, but to many USC people, beating the Bruins might be only the second-most important.

Notre Dame is still No. 1 to many--except, of course, the day when USC and UCLA play.

“How can you rate one or the other as being the most you’d like to beat?” asked former USC coach John McKay, but then he quickly added, “If it got right down to it, I’d probably rather beat Notre Dame.

“Notre Dame-SC is the nation’s game. UCLA-SC is the city’s game. I always felt very fortunate to beat either one of them.”

In 15 years at USC, McKay was 8-5-2 against Notre Dame and 10-4-1 against UCLA.

“Many years, it seemed like we had to beat UCLA to get a shot at Notre Dame and the national championship. And then we had to look at Ohio State or Michigan in the Rose Bowl. It made for some very challenging times, and I enjoyed every one.”

McKay and his wife will be flying out from Florida, where he retired after coaching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFL, for this year’s Notre Dame game Nov. 24 in the Coliseum.

Notre Dame might seem more important because from the first game, a 13-12 victory by the Fighting Irish in 1926, it has had national significance. UCLA, on the other hand, was no match for the Trojans when the series began in 1929 and USC was winning by scores of 76-0 and 52-0.

In the years before Red Sanders turned UCLA into a West Coast power, beating California was more important for Trojans than beating the Bruins.

Mike Garrett, the first of USC’s series of Heisman Trophy-winning tailbacks, was almost as elusive at being pinned down in choosing between UCLA and Notre Dame as he was carrying the ball back in 1963-65.

“Which one would I most want to win? I’d win ‘em both,” he said. “Anyone who thinks different can’t be a Trojan.”

Actually, Garrett beat Notre Dame only once and UCLA twice in his three years.

“Notre Dame is more important, but on the day you play UCLA it’s the most important thing in the world, maybe because they talk more trash when they win than Notre Dame,” Garrett said. “If you lose to Notre Dame, you hear about it all over the country, but beating UCLA is important because you hear more trash around town if they beat you. If you beat the Bruins, though, they’re mum all year.”

Pat Haden, who quarterbacked USC to three straight Rose Bowl games and the national championship in 1974, comes out strongly in favor of UCLA.

“To me, it was always UCLA we’d rather beat,” Haden said. “In those days, the game was always for the Rose Bowl and there was no chance to play in any other bowl. Beating UCLA always meant whether the season was over or extended to New Year’s Day.

“Notre Dame was a special game, but it didn’t have the extra flavor of facing UCLA. When I worked for CBS as a college football analyst, I came to realize that of all the great rivalries, none had an intercity component like SC-UCLA had. You grow up with guys, playing with them or against them all through high school and then when you meet them in the biggest game of the year in college, it has to mean something special. It is very important for the people who play in the game.”

Jim Easton, one of the Trojans’ longtime boosters, believes that the importance of the UCLA game is far greater today than it was 10 years or more ago.

“To the rest of the country, SC-Notre Dame is a big, big game, but when you live in Southern California, it’s hard not to think of SC-UCLA in the same vein,” said Easton, a former Glendale auto dealer who is now retired and living in Fallbrook. “If I had to know I could have only one win against the two of them, I’d be hard pressed to decide which one. I’d be hard pressed, but I’d come up with Notre Dame.

“A few years ago, there was no doubt in my mind that beating Notre Dame was uppermost. It wasn’t even close. At the time, I told (Times sports writer) Mal Florence that UCLA was no more than a boil that needed to be lanced once a year. Now, beating the Bruins is important for bragging rights at the country club and the office, but beyond that winning doesn’t have much national resonance.

“Look at it this way: You ask the average person in L.A. who won the Auburn-Alabama game last year, or the last five years, and he probably wouldn’t know. It would be the same in Birmingham, Ala., if you asked who won the USC-UCLA game. On the other hand, football fans everywhere know who won the SC-Notre Dame game. For that reason, it’s still No. 1 to me.”

Foster Andersen is in a unique position to look at the relative significance of the rivalries. He played at UCLA, then coached at both USC and UCLA. More important, he recruited for both schools.

“To live in this town as a Trojan, you’ve got to beat UCLA,” said Andersen, who now coaches the defense at L.A. Valley College on a part-time basis. “To be a national power, you’ve got to beat Notre Dame. It totals up to this--you’ve got to win them both.

“The most practical one is UCLA. If you don’t beat them, you won’t get the kids you need to recruit to win the next one. Recruiting is the life blood of all great coaches, and you’ve got to get the best kids in your area to compete. The best kids all like to migrate to the team that wins. In Southern California, that’s SC or UCLA.

“On the national level, when you’re out there trying to get the superstar from Ohio or Pennsylvania or Georgia, you nearly always find yourself coming up against Notre Dame. You’d be surprised how many great kids choose SC because they’d see us win on TV and in their minds they saw themselves playing in that (SC-Notre Dame) game, for SC, against Notre Dame, and they wanted to be part of it. The UCLA games were on national TV, too, but for some reason it didn’t generate the same interest for out-of-state recruiting.

“There’s just something special about playing--and beating-- Notre Dame because it has such a national connotation.”