Too close for comfort

The House of Blues had a little too much cardinal and gold in it for Bob Toledo’s taste.

Toledo was UCLA’s football coach a few years ago and was escorting a group of recruits into the restaurant when USC assistant Ed Orgeron appeared with a passel of recruits in tow.

“It was the damnedest thing I had ever seen,” Toledo recalled. “They start talking to our recruits in the parking lot and I was getting mad.”

So what happened? “We were talking to their recruits too,” said Toledo, who now coaches at Tulane. “We ended up with Marcedes Lewis out of that group. They got Darnell Bing.”

That, Toledo added, “is how it works in that rivalry. You’re so close that everyone knows each other’s business. You have to live 365 days together in that city. That’s great if you’re the guy who won that year.”

For the other? Well, that’s not so great.

The UCLA-USC football rivalry is about the personality of those running the programs. The ebbs and flows of the series seem to hinge on one side having a coach who stands out, while the other searches for the counterbalance.

Ohio State’s Woody Hayes and Michigan’s Bo Schembechler barked at each other from across state lines. Down south, Auburn and Alabama have 120 miles of Dixie as a buffer zone.

Within the Los Angeles city limits, there is one guy looking down and one guy trying to climb up.

“In Los Angeles, the persona of the person really makes a difference, whether it’s the Lakers or Dodgers or USC or UCLA,” former USC coach John Robinson said. “You guys don’t write about boring guys, and if the boring guy is not winning, you lose that front-page attention. That becomes a factor in recruiting.”

Both schools may have to seek new leaders after this season.

At USC, the annual speculation that Pete Carroll is off to the NFL has started, and those around Heritage Hall figure that someday the NFL will make him an offer he can’t refuse.

Out in Westwood, Karl Dorrell’s $2.05-million pink slip is ready -- a buyout package to be paid over two years, sources familiar with the athletic department say. A victory over USC today coupled with a berth in the Rose Bowl is believed to be the only thing that will prevent Dorrell’s exit. His 1-3 record against USC is hardly a selling point.

“At UCLA, you got to beat USC,” former Bruins coach Terry Donahue said. “You don’t have to beat them all the time, but you need to beat them enough to keep your job. What is enough? That’s probably in the hands of the decision-makers.”

Only twice have USC and UCLA brought in new coaches in the same year -- in 1920, when Howard Jones was hired at USC and William Spaulding at UCLA, and 1976, when Robinson and Donahue arrived near the same time.

Robinson beat UCLA his first four games, continuing a 14-5-1 Trojans run that began under John McKay. Donahue and the Bruins were increasingly cast as second-class citizens in Los Angeles going into the 1980 game.

“The press and the talk shows were saying that if I didn’t win that game, I was gone,” Donahue said.

The Bruins prevailed, 20-17, and won five of the next seven meetings.

Donahue went 10-5-1 against USC from 1980 to ‘95, with the Trojans having three coaches in that span, including a second tour of duty for Robinson. When he returned in 1993, UCLA was the A-list-and-klieg-light program.

“I could tell we didn’t have as many good players,” Robinson said. “The focus on the program had slipped. . . . I always felt guilty that I didn’t recognize that and it took me a couple of years to say, ‘Uh-oh, things are not same.’ ”

UCLA won eight consecutive games against USC -- Donahue the first five and Toledo the next three. The Bruins also came within one Edgerrin James run of playing in the national title game in 1998. That loss to Miami started the slide back.

“I think you have to be a good coach, a good recruiter and a good PR guy in both those jobs,” said Toledo, who lost his last three USC games and was fired after the 2002 season. “There are so many functions you got to attend, so much media, and you’re both in one city. Everything you do is displayed under glass.”

And change is always a new hire away.

“All of a sudden, Pete was doing a great job and the worm has turned a little now,” Toledo said.

The series has been a pendulum swing. When one university finds the guy, the other usually needs a Grail-like quest to stem the momentum.

A dynamic, high-profile coach has always turned things around.

Jones came to USC in 1925, when college football began to swell in Los Angeles. He won four national titles and had a 5-0-1 record against UCLA.

The Trojans had a 12-2-4 record against the Bruins when Red Sanders was hired on the recommendation from sportswriter Grantland Rice. UCLA won six of nine games against USC under Sanders before he died of a heart attack before the 1958 season. The Bruins won their only national title in 1954.

“The rivalry had been one-sided and you could feel it change when Red got there,” said Sam Boghosian, who played at UCLA from 1952 to ’54 and later was an assistant coach for the Bruins.

“When [USC Coach] Jess Hill recruited me, all he talked about was baseball at USC,” Boghosian said. “He was a good guy, but he didn’t talk any football. I liked Red. He had a great personality, he mixed very well, had a great sense of humor. He was also a mean, tough, son of a [gun] when it came to football.”

John McKay was relatively unknown when he was hired at USC in 1960. By the time he was finished, Bruins fans were sick of seeing that white horse ride around the Coliseum.

“The hires for the most part have not been spectacular,” Robinson said. “When McKay came in, I remember headlines that said, ‘John Who?’ ”

But McKay became a name, winning three national titles and going 10-5-1 against UCLA. The Bruins had four coaches during his time at USC.

“The personality, the image of that guy who is coaching at these universities is important,” Robinson said. “In Los Angeles, I always thought there were six or seven coaches vying for the spotlight.”

Two, though, are recruiting from the same talent pool, so the image ends up at the same front doors.

“I run into Pete all the time out recruiting,” said UCLA assistant Eric Scott, one of the Bruins’ top recruiters.

Carroll swung the rivalry back to USC in 2001. He has won two national titles and was 19 seconds from a third. And he’s 5-1 against UCLA.

“Pete has done something that I didn’t think was [possible] anymore, he’s been able to stack talent players,” former UCLA athletic director Peter Dalis said. “What is very vital is the belief in someone, especially with the fan base. He gave them belief again and SC’s talent base the last five years is one of the tops in college football.”

Carroll said personality could be a factor in such a situation.

“I don’t know if it is, but I think it could,” Carroll said. “I think when you have coaches over a lot of years, matching up and things are happening and there’s history and there’s stories, I’m sure, that has been part of it in years past. I don’t know if it is now.”

It is, but so is winning.

After beating USC for the first time last season, Dorrell gleaned verbal commitments for what could be one of the nation’s top recruiting classes. Another victory could save his job.

“There is motivation on both sides because of the ramifications associated with this game,” Dorrell said. “We’re still trying to gain momentum as a program. We’re still trying to make an impression both in this conference and particularly in this city. That hasn’t been easy. We’re still working to get ourselves in a position to be a big part of this city again and part of that is being successful in this game.”

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chris.foster@latimes.com

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On the grid

Comparing USC and UCLA football programs:

*--* USC CATEGORY UCLA 436 Draft picks (through 2007) 218 408 Played in NFL (before 2007) 273 102 All-Americans 87 7 Heisman Trophy winners 1 11 Football national championships 1 29 Bowl wins 13 4 BCS bowl wins 0 35 College Football Hall of Fame 11 22 Academic All-Americans, football 27 1 Thorpe awards 0 1 Outland trophies 2 1 Butkus awards 0 1 Lombardi winners 0 *--*

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Sources: USC, UCLA