As the USC football team prepares to play rival UCLA on Saturday, with a victory earning them another Rose Bowl berth (they should be playing for the BCS championship … Stanford? What the hell?) USC officials are making sure everyone knows they’re presently negotiating to make the Rose Bowl the team’s permanent home. The university announced Tuesday it was seeking a two-year lease with the Rose Bowl, something the Rose Bowl Operating Company will discuss at a Dec. 6 meeting. That meeting could go a long way to determining not only the local college football landscape, but pro as well–and it could reverberate in Long Beach, i.e. put the touch of death on any possibility of the city attracting a NFL team. Everybody say “Hurrah!”

Here’s the deal: if USC moves to Pasadena, it would leave the Coliseum without a football tenant. The NFL, which has been trying to get into L.A. for years, has resisted proposals that a new team play in the Coliseum because, for one, it didn’t want to share the facility with a college. If the NFL is about anything, it’s about having control. That and municipal extortion. With USC out of the way, the Coliseum would be desperate to make a deal for a tenant, and the NFL feeds on such desperation–reminds me of a dude I knew in college who had a talent for always being able to spot the most vulnerable girl at a party.

If USC were to leave, L.A. would probably be more amenable to making changes in the Coliseum like, oh, I dunno, PROVIDING SOME FRIGGING PARKING FOR A FACILITY THAT SEATS 90,000! The NFL might want to be there, and end any dalliances with cities like Long Beach. Incredibly, some people have wanted the NFL to come to Long Beach for quite some time, and the talk got turned up a bit louder when the Queen Mary property got passed to its current holder with talk of redeveloping the grounds. Some city officials and journalists started talking about how nice a stadium would fit into the environs and how nice it would be to be a big league city–though it hasn’t done much for the profile of East Rutherford, New Jersey (Giants) or Irving, Texas (Cowboys) or, for that matter, Tampa (Buccaneers), Jacksonville (Jaguars) or Charlotte (Panthers).

Now, if you find yourself saying that all of this is silly because USC would never leave the Coliseum, I would refer you back to the fact that the Coliseum is a poorly-run city facility. Also, it’s a piece of crap. Historical? Absolutely. Dripping with tradition. Yes. It’s also dripping with 85 years worth of crud. But, you say, the stadium is practically on the USC campus. True, but the fact is that USC students make up a small percentage of game day crowds. The vast majority drive in from Manhattan Beach, Newport Beach and, hello, Pasadena, which has a huge number of USC alumnus living in and around it. What’s more, the Coliseum Commission which “runs” the facility, such as it is, is a pain in the ass to deal with. For example, when news reached Coliseum general manager Pat Lynch about the possible Rose Bowl deal he pooh-poohed it–the worst kind of pooh–saying he found the announcement “amusing.”

It may not be so funny when the Trojans open next season beneath the silver Pasadena haze, but it may turn out to be the best thing that ever happened–and didn’t happen–to Long Beach.

Tags: BCS, Coliseum, Cowboys, Giants, Long Beach, Pasadena, Rose Bowl, UCLA, USC Trojans