Entering the 1938 college football season, USC and program patriarch Howard Jones had a lot to prove. Stanford and California had produced several successful seasons. USC had won five Pacific Coast Conference (the precursor to the Pacific-8 Conference, today’s Pac-12) championships in a six-year span from 1927 through 1932, but from 1933-1937, Stanford and Cal took over. The Trojans didn’t win a conference title in half a decade, which was not the typical Howard Jones standard. USC needed to fight back. The Trojans began their all-time series with Ohio State in 1937 and beat the Buckeyes in the Coliseum, but that game didn’t help USC in a broader context. The Trojans did not win the Pacific Coast title or reach the Rose Bowl that season. Cal did, and the Golden Bears then shut out Alabama 13-0 in the 1938 Rose Bowl. USC needed to use the Ohio State game as…
Continue Reading: USC football regular-season history vs Ohio State: 1938
