[Farm93]

"Or maybe Oregon and ASU become more perennially powerful than SC and/or UCLA and it works to Stanford's advantage."

Schools in high population areas that are willing to accept players with poor academics, tollerate deviant behaviors, and pay premium salaries to coaches are always going to have an advantage. Sooner or later the LA schools will return to their norms.

Historically that has not really been true.  New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston are all big cities and none of them have a college football powerhouse.  The best programs play in the biggest markets WITHOUT an NFL team. 

Talk about a wild card.  If the NFL put a sparkling new stadium in Commerce or Long Beach, or anywhere just far enough from the SC campus, then the whole dynamic would change a lot in the Southland.  The Trojans are in a 99 year lease for an aging local landmark.  They can make it work but their success has actually been rather atypical.  And I would suspect that the Trojans could drop to the attendance levels they had in the mid 80s and 90s if the NFL came back to the region.

[Farm93]

"Or maybe Oregon and ASU become more perennially powerful than SC and/or UCLA and it works to Stanford's advantage."

Schools in high population areas that are willing to accept players with poor academics, tollerate deviant behaviors, and pay premium salaries to coaches are always going to have an advantage. Sooner or later the LA schools will return to their norms.

Historically that has not really been true.  New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston are all big cities and none of them have a college football powerhouse.  The best programs play in the biggest markets WITHOUT an NFL team. 

Talk about a wild card.  If the NFL put a sparkling new stadium in Commerce or Long Beach, or anywhere just far enough from the SC campus, then the whole dynamic would change a lot in the Southland.  The Trojans are in a 99 year lease for an aging local landmark.  They can make it work but their success has actually been rather atypical.  And I would suspect that the Trojans could drop to the attendance levels they had in the mid 80s and 90s if the NFL came back to the region.