Trojans Most Hated Team in California and More USC Football News

USC football is the most hated team in California, but not among the most hated in the nation, which is a bad sign for the increasingly irrelevant Trojans.

Can’t get enough USC football and basketball news? We’ve got your morning dose of all the best content from around the web concerning the men of Troy.

1st & 10:

First Take… Haters gonna hate. Just not enough.

A “scientific” poll conducted on Reddit determined the most hated teams in college football last week, but results should have Trojan fans worried.

USC was, unsurprisingly, the most hated team in California by some margin. The Trojans, who received 31.6 percent of votes from the Golden State, beat UCLA for that title by double the hate.

However, the men of Troy were no where to be found in the national results. The top spot went to Ohio State at 11.4 percent. Alabama and Michigan tied for second with 9.2 percent. Texas and Florida rounded out the top five while Auburn, Texas A&M, Florida State, South Carolina and Baylor populated the top ten.

While some might take solace in the fact that USC is not particularly hateable at this moment, that is not a good distinction for the Trojans.

To put it simply, success breeds envy and envy yields hate. This very poll conducted ten years ago would have almost certainly included USC among the most hated because Pete Carroll’s Trojans earned hate by beating teams from every region so thoroughly. The fact that USC is no longer hated is an unfortunate sign of irrelevance.

Every time there is a hint of renewed life in USC’s program, people ask the question “Is USC back?” We’ll know it’s true when the Trojans are hateable again.

And Ten USC Football and Basketball News Links…

1. r/CFB: More from Reddit, someone put together a March Madness-style 64-team playoff for college football. USC would face Texas Tech as a No. 7 seed.
2. Reign of Troy: Kevon Seymour showed off his speed at the NFL Combine Monday, posting the sixth fastest 40-yard dash among defensive backs and the fastest time for a Trojan in ten years.
3. Reign of Troy: USC announced spring practice dates beginning on March 8 and continuing through the Spring Game on April 16.
4. Reign of Troy USC basketball has slipped to No. 8 seed status in NCAA tournament bracketology.
5. USC Athletics: Oluwole Betiku’s journey from Nigeria to USC still feels like a dream to the five-star defensive lineman. The latest Black History Month special profiles Betiku’s past, present and future.
6. Bleacher Report: JuJu Smith-Schuster is Justin Ferguson’s top wide receiver entering spring practice for 2016.
7. Bleacher Report: A host of recruits attended USC’s Junior Day on Saturday. Tyler Donahue runs through some of their reactions to the day.
8. Sports Illustrated: USC’s contest between Max Browne and Sam Darnold this spring is one of the top QB battles to watch this spring as picked by Chris Johnson.
9. Sports Illustrated: Su’a Cravens is No. 26 on  Chris Burkey’s Big Board of the top 100 prospects for the NFL draft following the Combine.
10. SB Nation: USC was the top team of the 1920s, the fourth best program of the 1070s and the fifth best of the 2000s, as calculated by Bill Connelly’s S&P+ estimated ratings going back to 1890.

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