Robinson Already Feeling Rosy : USC-UCLA: Trojan coach says most important thing about today’s big game is to have fun.

Above all, John Robinson said this week, have fun.

Enjoy. Cherish. And remember, always, how they play the game today, USC’s football coach advised.

In a city beset with problems of crime, unemployment, traffic and fires, here comes a game to hang your hat on.

USC and UCLA will play the Los Angeles city championship game for the 63rd time today, before more than 94,000 at a sold-out Coliseum. The Rose Bowl is on the line for both schools.

At USC’s practice Thursday, a couple of hundred fans stood on the sidelines, watching.

“My assistant coaches were begging me to close the practice, but I didn’t want to,” Robinson said.

“This game is so important to all of us, and yet I want everyone, above all, to enjoy the game, to have fun. I want this university to be the kind of place where a professor or a student can go watch football practice any time they want.”

But that was Thursday, and apparently on Friday, Robinson’s assistants got to him after all. He closed Friday’s workout. UCLA’s Coach Terry Donahue conducted open practices all week.

OK, so maybe it really isn’t the Fun Bowl. But in these USC-UCLA games, with the Rose Bowl on the line, USC always seems to have more fun than UCLA.

In the 21 USC-UCLA Rose Bowl showdown games, USC leads 15-5-1, and has won the last 10. In one of those games, USC also needed Washington and Washington State to tie to gain the Rose Bowl berth.

They started playing this game in 1929. Overall, USC leads, 34-21-7, but UCLA has won the last two.

This season, USC, 7-4 overall, sits atop the Pacific-10 Conference at 6-1. UCLA is 7-3 and 5-2. USC can reach the Rose Bowl today with either a victory or a tie. UCLA must win.

But both coaches say, and everyone who has followed the series would probably agree, past performances, odds, scores and comparative statistics rarely seem to account for much when these two meet.

Most recent example: Last season, at the Rose Bowl, when UCLA was a decided underdog, the Bruins’ Nkosi Littleton batted down Rob Johnson’s two-point conversion pass with 41 seconds left, preserving a 38-37 UCLA victory after USC had led after three quarters, 31-17.

Today’s matchup features two highly productive offensive duos, USC’s Johnson and Johnnie Morton, and UCLA’s Wayne Cook and J.J. Stokes. They have accounted for more than three miles of offense in 21 games.

Morton, a 6-foot, 190-pound senior wide receiver from Torrance, has set 11 conference and USC receiving records this year and is the only one of the four who is ailing. He didn’t practice this week until Wednesday, battling an illness his mother says is tonsillitis.

Morton practiced Friday, however, and Robinson expects him to play today.

Robinson’s team is coming off a 22-17 victory at Seattle last weekend, one that ended a 17-game home winning streak for Washington. Donahue’s team lost to Arizona State last Saturday, 9-3, but he says that’s already ancient history.

“We got stung Saturday, but the fact that we’re in the biggest game of the year and we can go to the Rose Bowl, that will take away the focus of that game more quickly than if it was just another conference game,” he said.

Now the dean of Pac-10 coaches--he’s in his 18th season--Donahue, 49, said the Bruins’ 14-13 loss to Nebraska in the second game of the season was a turning point. UCLA had lost its opener to California, 27-25.

“The Nebraska game was very important because it showed we could play with a nationally ranked team,” he said. “Once we got through it and got our first win, against Stanford, it seemed like we took off like a rocket.”

Indeed. UCLA then won seven in a row.

The Trojans were reeling after their opener, a 31-9 loss to North Carolina in Anaheim. There were two low points to come--a 38-7 loss at Arizona and a 31-13 loss at Notre Dame.

USC coaches and players are quick to point out, however, that USC outscored Notre Dame in the second half, 6-3, and has since won three in a row.

Two team statistics stand out:

--USC’s second-half defense. The Trojans have given up only 25 second-half points in their last 10 games, including only one touchdown. They have not given up a second-half touchdown in their last six games and have four second-half shutouts.

--UCLA’s turnover ratio. At plus-1.9, the Bruins have the nation’s best turnover margin. Defensive coordinator Bob Field’s unit has recovered 21 fumbles and intercepted 17 passes. And UCLA has thrown only seven interceptions and lost 12 fumbles.

And this is a road game for the Bruins, and UCLA is 4-0 on the road this year.

The junior quarterbacks, Johnson and Cook, seldom throw interceptions.

Johnson is completing 69.1% of his passes and has given up only four interceptions. He has thrown for 24 touchdowns and 2,978 yards, which makes him the all-time school leader.

Cook sat out the Arizona State game last weekend because of a bruised kidney but was cleared to play Monday. He has thrown for 16 touchdowns and 1,601 yards and has yielded only three interceptions.

And then there is Stokes, the Bruins’ 6-foot-4, 214-pound wide receiver. He has scored 16 touchdowns and ranks fifth in the NCAA in scoring at 9.6 points per game.

Who gets to cover Stokes? Probably Jason Sehorn, USC’s 6-3 cornerback, who leads the Pac-10 in interceptions with six. And he probably will have help.

As for Robinson, he recalled the 1978 USC-UCLA game:

“I was young and very athletic then. I led the team on the field and one of the guys got the back of my heel and I went down, face down. I laid there until the last guy went by, then I jumped right up. But TV caught me going down.

“The next day, John Madden (the former Raider coach and Robinson’s boyhood friend) called me and said: ‘I saw you! You fell down!’ ”

Have fun.

No Trouble for Trojans

USC has lost 11 consecutive games to Notre Dame, but the Trojans have won 10 in a row against UCLA with the Rose Bowl on the line for both teams and are 15-5-1 overall in such games: Here are the last 10 results: 1967: USC, 21-10 1969: USC, 14-12 1972: USC, 24-7 1973: USC, 23-13 1974: USC, 34-9 1976: USC, 24-14 1978: USC, 17-10 1981*: USC, 22-21 1987: USC, 17-13 1988: USC, 31-22

* USC needed a tie between Washington State and Washington to get to the Rose Bowl. Washington won.