Dan Weber, Riverside Press-Enterprise

The goal is always the Rose Bowl, anyone around the USC football program will tell you.  But the Jan. 1 matchup the BCS dealt USC, against an Illinois team ranked the lowest of teams getting BCS bowl invitations Sunday, wasn’t exactly what USC was hoping for. The two-loss Trojans (10-2) knew they had almost certainly knocked themselves out of any shot at the championship game with a loss to Stanford… continue