They carried their teams on their backs in USC-UCLA series

Richard Brehaut opened the season on the bench.

Mitch Mustain has spent nearly four seasons there.

But the backup quarterbacks could be at center stage Saturday night when UCLA plays USC at the Rose Bowl in the 80th meeting between the crosstown rivals.

Brehaut, a sophomore, will start for the Bruins. Mustain, a fifth-year senior, will either start for the Trojans or be at the ready if Matt Barkley’s injured left ankle pushes him to the sideline.

Heroics by Brehaut or Mustain would not be unprecedented. The historic series is rife with examples of backup quarterbacks who have led their teams to victory.

Norman Dow famously did it for UCLA in 1966, John Barnes in 1992.

USC’s John Fox stepped in and stepped up for the Trojans in 1999.

All describe their USC-UCLA performances as the highlight of what were otherwise less-than-storied college careers.

“It was one of the greatest days of my life,” Dow said this week. “I put that up there with having my kids and getting married.”

Dow got his chance 44 years ago because UCLA star Gary Beban suffered a broken ankle in the previous game. Bruins Coach Tommy Prothro was said to be considering moving running back Mel Farr to quarterback against the Trojans but instead he went with Dow, a senior who had never started.

The elevated status brought nerve-wracking attention, Dow skipping all of his classes after a reporter tracked him down for a campus interview early in the week.

“I was a good student but I took that week off and was looking at film,” he said.

Meantime, Prothro told the Bruins they would win if they played as hard against the Trojans as Dow had practiced the previous three years.

“Once I took the first snap in the game,” Dow said, “the jitters, they all went away and everything fell into place.”

Dow played an error-free game, rushing for 82 yards in 19 carries and completing two of eight passes for 30 yards. He led two second-half scoring drives as the underdog Bruins won, 14-7.

The victory improved UCLA to 9-1 overall and 3-1 in the Athletic Assn. of Western Universities. USC was 7-2 and 4-1.

A few days later, conference athletic directors voted to send USC to the Rose Bowl. The Trojans then lost to Notre Dame, 51-0, in the regular-season finale before losing to Purdue, 14-13, in the Rose Bowl.

Like his teammates and Bruins fans, Dow was angry at the Rose Bowl slight.

More than four decades later, after a high school coaching career that saw him win four Central Coast Section titles during his 18 seasons at Live Oak High in Morgan Hill, Calif., the retired 65-year old laughs when recalling that Beban later told him he probably would not have healed in time for the Rose Bowl.

“I said that was good because the way I finished people didn’t know how bad I was,” Dow said. “If I played in the Rose Bowl and played terrible, everybody would have forgotten [the USC game]. … That was the way to go out.”

Barnes can relate.

In 1992, the senior walk-on was in his first and only season at UCLA after stops at three other colleges.

He had attended the USC-UCLA game as a spectator a year earlier, then found himself on the field preparing to start against the Trojans.

“I remember warming up for the game and some girl, a producer, was there asking if I was single,” Barnes recalled. “That was funny.”

With Coach Terry Donahue and quarterbacks coach Rick Neuheisel helping him along, Barnes passed for 385 yards and three touchdowns in a 38-37 victory.

“I remember taking the game ball and running up the stairs and giving it to my parents,” he said. “Long after the game, I actually walked back to the field and soaked it all in, thinking I was really fortunate that we had won but also for the opportunity Coach Donahue had given me to play with the team, because it is a team game.”

Today, the 41-year-old Barnes lives in Menlo Park in Northern California and works in technology systems sales.

He plans to be on the sideline for the first half Saturday night before watching the second half from the stands.

“When I think about the game I played in it just reminds me that nothing comes real easy; you have to work for where you want to go and sometimes you have to have breaks fall your way,” he said. “That game represents a microcosm of what I use in life.”

Fox learned a similar lesson while leading USC to a 17-7 victory in 1999.

He had started nine games at quarterback in 1997 for Coach John Robinson but then began an odyssey of position switches under Paul Hackett. He played on special teams and as a reserve tight end in 1998 and went into the 1999 season listed as a linebacker.

“I really didn’t have a niche,” he said.

But when Carson Palmer suffered a season-ending shoulder injury, Fox moved up to No. 2 quarterback behind Mike Van Raaphorst. He replaced Van Raaphorst as the starter two games before the Trojans met the Bruins.

Fox passed for two touchdowns without an interception as USC ended an eight-game losing streak against the Bruins.

“I don’t necessarily know that I was the spark, but players collectively said this was on us,” Fox said. “It was kind of the right moment and the right time and I had the right mind-set as a senior.”

Fox, 33, is a middle school teacher in Murrieta, Calif.

The lesson he learned against UCLA is similar to the message he tries to impart daily to his students.

“I just made sure when it was my opportunity, I was going to give it my all,” he said.

gary.klein@latimes.com