CJ Stroud is from Southern California but left his home area to play college football at Ohio State. He believes he had some very good reasons for doing so.
Stroud’s Buckeyes will be facing Utah in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., which brings Stroud less than an hour away from his home in the Inland Empire. He talked Wednesday about players from SoCal leaving the area to play at programs elsewhere around the country. He attributed the moves to unimpressive fanbases for UCLA and USC.
Ohio State QB CJ Stroud on SoCal kids going out of state: "You go to USC & UCLA games, and quite honestly, it's just kind of boring. Without all the people. They kind of just are there on vacation. You go to the other schools out of state & their fans are kind of like fanatics."
— Joe Reedy (@joereedy) December 29, 2021
“You go to USC and UCLA games, and quite honestly, it’s just kind of boring. Without all the people. They kind of just are there on vacation. You go to the other schools out of state and their fans are kind of like fanatics,” Stroud said, via Joe Reedy.
Stroud is right and wrong.
Stroud was too young to experience what the Coliseum was like when Pete Carroll was at USC. The Coliseum was rocking when Carroll was there, and the Trojans were one of the biggest attractions in town during their run of dominance. They were among Hollywood royalty, with Matt Leinart as well known as Paris Hilton. But when Stroud became a teenager and likely had more interest in football, USC was headed by Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian, and Clay Helton. Those coaches had some measures of success and double-digit win seasons, but they left a lot to be desired, and the fan environment just wasn’t the same. Under Helton, the fan interest became dead. During that time is when USC would have been in position to recruit Stroud.
UCLA had some nice success early in Jim Mora’s tenure, but things leveled off, and then the Bruins were flat-out bad at the start of Chip Kelly’s tenure. Fan interest in UCLA Football has often been mediocre, and it’s never been helped by the stadium being an hour away from campus.
If both programs — especially USC — were better, then Stroud would have seen more excitement from the fan bases at the time that he was a recruit.
Overall though, the passion SEC fans and several Big Ten and Big 12 fans have for their teams just obliterates UCLA and USC in comparison. Both USC and UCLA have diehard fans, but they have way too many fair-weather fans. The amount of diehard Ohio State or Texas fans, for example, is much greater.
It’s not just the mediocre performances from both premier SoCal football programs recently that has resulted in this feeling; it’s the result of an attitude from a disinterested and almost disdainful administration. Many of the schools in the Pac-12, especially the ones in California, have just shown a lack of interest in investing in their football programs to compete with SEC programs or other top ones across the country. The leaderships at some of these schools almost seem proud of this notion, like they perversely receive enjoyment from canceling sporting events. The Pac-12 shut down and barely played football last season. Cal was the only program to shut down a game this regular season. UCLA flaked on a bowl game this week.
If you’re a top athlete, why would you go to one of the local schools that aren’t as invested in football as an Alabama or Clemson? That’s what Bryce Young and DJ Uiagalelei realized. Stroud saw it too.
But USC finally invested with a big hire in Lincoln Riley. That may get them as close to the Carroll days as possible. And if they achieve similar levels of success, Stroud and other top local players will see how electric it can be. UCLA still has a long way to go to disprove Stroud, especially after treating their diehard fans who traveled to San Diego like crap by canceling their bowl game hours before kickoff.
Photo: Joseph Maiorana-USA TODAY Sports
