Mike Tepper has a vision. It involves Memorial Stadium melting into a euphoric sea, people cascading down from the bleachers onto the field, collecting the goal posts along the way, spilling out onto Bancroft Avenue and flooding Sproul until late into the night.

"Mass mayhem," Tepper says with a smile, and you can tell that absolutely none of this is insincere.

It's a vision of the aftermath of a win over USC, and as of this morning, it's just a vision. Because Tepper has been through a lot in his time with the Cal football team. He's seen the Bears lose one game in 2004 and six in 2007. He's seen ascensions into national prominence and midseason meltdowns. He's seen five seasons come and go, now midway through his sixth.

But he has never beaten the Trojans. No current Cal player has had a hand in one fall of Troy. And for the seniors-of whom Tepper is the only one in his sixth year-today is their last chance.

"I guess I look at 'SC games kind of like Stanford games," says Tepper. "You lose the Axe, you just feel like absolute dog ... input four-letter word here. It's something you don't ever want to do, not only for yourself, your team, your family, but for the Cal community.

"'I've beaten Oregon, I've lost to Oregon before. Stanford, I've only lost once. 'SC, we've never beaten them since I've been here. And it definitely churns my stomach a little bit."

This year's matchup has ramifications outside of anything that has to do with rivalry. Win, and the Bears remain in the hunt for the Pac-10 title. Lose, and that window of opportunity shuts pretty tight.

But beneath Cal's one-game-at-a-time attitude and the normal preparation for this week is the knowledge that the Trojans could post a shutout against these seniors for their careers.

And it burns.

"It does. It does, man," says linebacker Eddie Young. "It's one of those things where it's like those guys that you just hate, want to beat them so bad, but you just never-just little things each game and you don't come out with the win.

"I just want to beat them so bad."

That's the thing that irks a lot of these guys is how close the games have been, year in and year out. There was the 23-17 loss in 2004, when Cal had a first-and-goal from the nine-yard line with two minutes left and couldn't punch it in for the lead. The 2006 meeting, when the Bears led at halftime but couldn't hold onto it in a 23-9 defeat. USC's 24-17 win a year later in pouring rain at Memorial Stadium.

The consensus is that each game since 2004-the 35-10 loss in 2005 probably excepted-has seemed to come down to one or two mistakes on one or two plays. Ask a handful of players to name one example that stands out in their minds, and you're liable to get a different answer from every one:

The illegal formation penalty in last year's loss that nullified a touchdown pass to Shane Vereen. The touchdown pass to Patrick Turner that appeared to hit the ground but wasn't challenged. From 2007, a USC punt near the five-yard line that was very nearly blocked but passed right through the Cal player's hands. A miscommunication on defense in 2006 that left the Trojans' Steve Smith streaking alone into the end zone.

It's striking how minute the details are. Young points out a pass deflection in last year's game by Worrell Williams. Williams did not drop as deeply into pass coverage as coach Kenwick Thompson typically suggests his linebackers should. As a result, Williams ended up a few yards closer to the line of scrimmage than he should have been when the pass was thrown. The result: a deflection off of his outstretched fingertips rather than a potentially game-altering interception.

"Just little stuff," says Young.

"This is a game that, since I've been here, we've just come close," adds senior cornerback Syd'Quan Thompson. "It's just always like all the way up to the fourth quarter. Cal, you know, they're in it, and it's just something that gets away from us."

Don't get them wrong. They're not complaining or still hung up on the results of seasons past. But as Tepper says, "It's one of those things you get frustrated with." And every one of them is aware of how to buck the trend.

"They're going to make their plays, we're going to make plays, so it comes down to who makes the most plays," says coach Jeff Tedford. "It's about making more plays than they make."

Of course, that hasn't happened since 2003. And for that reason alone it might be valid to question what makes this annual Cal-USC meeting a rivalry at all.

The two teams aren't playing for local respect like the Bears and Stanford or the Trojans and UCLA. The matchup doesn't have a moniker.

What's supposed to make them rivals is the fact that, for the better part of the decade, they've both competed for the Pac-10 title. But USC has been so dominant since the beginning of Carroll's tenure-both against Cal and in the conference in general-that the success just seems one-sided. And that side lives in L.A.

So is it really a rivalry?

"Yeah, it is," junior receiver Jeremy Ross says. "Even though we lose every year.

"It's big. People get real hyped up for the game-as you can see it's sold out dang near when they put the tickets online. It's a big rivalry, with a lot of competition."

Part of it is the fact that such a significant part of the Bears' roster hails from Southern California where the Trojans are kings-a microcosm of the NorCal-SoCal divide.

"Being from Southern California myself I get a lot of texts, a lot of calls, people trying to get tickets," says senior fullback Brian Holley. "People, the media, they pump it up as much as they can."

"The NorCal-SoCal deal" is also what Carroll points to when asked if the teams' annual meeting draws as much hype in his area as it does around Strawberry Canyon.

Still, he adds that "Our games are all huge," and he has a point. Just this season, the Trojans play nonconference games against traditional, historic powerhouses Ohio State and Notre Dame. National prestige like USC's has a habit of lending itself to those marquee matchups.

"But as far as the Pac-10 goes, I still think that we're a rival in their eyes," says Ross. "We always give them a good battle."

For Thompson, at least, that adds up to enough.

"It's SoCal vs. NorCal, it's always been a good game. Why not?" he says. "Regardless, of the name of it, you know you're going to get a good game out of it."

The notion of this rivalry as we know it, though, has emerged mostly in the past few years, says the Berkeley native Young. It roughly coincides with the arrivals of Tedford and Carroll at their respective programs, and particularly with what happened between them in 2003.

That year, the third-ranked Trojans had their undefeated record spoiled in both teams' conference opener in Strawberry Canyon. Cal tailback Adimchinobe Echemandu ran for 147 yards, backup quarterback Reggie Robertson threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to send the game into triple overtime, kicker Tyler Fredrickson ended it with a 38-yard field goal and, suddenly, under Tedford, Bears football had arrived.

Suddenly, they were a team that could truly contend with the USC juggernaut.

Young was a junior at Berkeley High at the time, and his brother Sean was in his first year with Cal, but Eddie wasn't in Memorial Stadium to witness Fredrickson's heroics.

The Yellow Jackets were playing Bishop O'Dowd that afternoon because O'Dowd didn't have lights for a Friday night game, and it was only when he got home from the game that Young's father told him what had happened.

"I came up (towards Memorial Stadium) and everybody was going crazy in the streets," says Young. "Streets of Berkeley were going crazy. It was just wild."

It sounds familiar-something like mass mayhem. Something like the scenario that at least one player on this Cal team has envisioned on nights like this one for the past six years.

But to be a part of it, that's something else altogether.

"We're trying to bring that back," says Young. "We need that. It's a must right now. We feel like we've got all the pieces in place to do that. Schemewise, we're ready. We need that victory right now, especially for the seniors that have been there for a long time."

For Young and Thompson and Holley. For Tepper and his six seasons. For all of them.

Tags: USC FOOTBALL, MIKE TEPPER, CAL FOOTBALL