UCLA-USC NOTES : Trojans Hope Consolation Prize Is a Trip to Hancock Bowl

Its loss to UCLA, coupled with Notre Dame’s loss to Boston College, could put USC in an awkward position as bowl games prepare their lineups.

UCLA will go to the Rose Bowl, and the Pacific 10 Conference is tied to the bowl coalition, which can choose one team from any of the remaining Pac-10 members who are bowl-qualified, without regard to conference standings. They are USC, Arizona, Arizona State and California.

A John Hancock Bowl official said it wanted the loser of the UCLA-USC game as one of its teams, on Dec. 24, and Mike Garrett, USC’s athletic director, said Saturday that he had a conference call scheduled Monday with Hancock people to firm up plans.

But “if we are to talk with SC, it would have to be with the stipulation that their coming would have to depend on what other bowls do,” Hancock bowl spokesman Tom Starr said.

The Hancock gets the seventh choice among coalition members, behind the Orange, Cotton and Sugar bowls, which get one team each, and the Fiesta (two teams) and Gator bowls.

With a national championship game perhaps lost to the Fiesta Bowl when Notre Dame was defeated by Boston College, it could choose Arizona as one of its teams, which would leave USC to the Freedom Bowl unless other arrangements are made.

“We are not going to the Freedom Bowl,” said Garrett, whose Trojans lost, 24-7, to Fresno State in the Freedom Bowl last season.

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UCLA Coach Terry Donahue, on whether he favors meeting Wisconsin or Ohio State in the Rose Bowl: “I could (not) care less, although I will probably root for my personal friend John Cooper (Ohio State’s coach).”