[jayasena]

UCLA is benefiting much more from U$C's woes than Stanford is.  UCLA is becoming too strong, and U$C too weak.  We need those two to slug it out to a stalemate.  I can't believe I'm saying this, but I may cheer for U$C to have a better season than UCLA with the two going combined 0-2 or 0-3 against Stanford.

Plus beating a perceived-strong USC team gets us lots of national respect. Beating UCLA, regardless of how good that team is, doesn't have the same cachet. So I agree that the best scenario for Stanford is for those two teams to be balanced with perhaps a slight edge to USC.

[jayasena]

UCLA is benefiting much more from U$C's woes than Stanford is.  UCLA is becoming too strong, and U$C too weak.  We need those two to slug it out to a stalemate.  I can't believe I'm saying this, but I may cheer for U$C to have a better season than UCLA with the two going combined 0-2 or 0-3 against Stanford.

Plus beating a perceived-strong USC team gets us lots of national respect. Beating UCLA, regardless of how good that team is, doesn't have the same cachet. So I agree that the best scenario for Stanford is for those two teams to be balanced with perhaps a slight edge to USC.