USC is Super Bowl U

And it's not even close.

Consider:

91 Trojans have played in Super Bowls (first overall in college football).

The USC coaching tree includes Joe Gibbs, who won several Super Bowls with the Redskins and Mike Holmgren, who won two one with the Green Bay Packers and nearly a third second last year with Seattle. Other notable former USC assistants include two former Super Bowl winning Cowboy assistants in Norv Turner and Dave Wannstedt.

Oh, there's this guy named Lynn Swann you may have heard of? USC guy and MVP of Super Bowl X. He was known to make a playoff catch or two.

The last non-suck Cincinnati teams were led by offensive tackle Anthony Munoz. Unfortunately for Munoz they also ran into the buzzsaw that was the 1980's San Francisco 49er squads.

The ferocious Ronnie Lott won several Super Bowls with San Francisco and later Tim McDonald won one himself. Both were incredible safeties at USC.

Marcus Allen was a Super Bowl MVP with the Raiders thanks to a memorable 75-yard touchdown run as part of a 191 yard day that at one point was a Super Bowl record. Rod Martin arguably should have been named MVP in 1981 for his three-interception effort against the Eagles.

Heisman Trophy winner Mike Garrett was a 1,000 yard back for one of the early Chiefs Super Bowl teams. Bart Starr got all the love but the game was different back then and the running back was pretty much everything to a successful offense.

More recently, Willie McGinnest set a playoff record for sacks and was the defensive heart and soul for several New England Patriot Super Bowl teams.

The San Diego Chargers would have never made the improbably run to the 1995 Super Bowl without the defensive efforts of Junior Seau. Yet again he fell victim to another San Francisco 49er buzzsaw, but that's how the game goes sometimes.

Mosi Tatupu was the fullback and special teams warrior for the 1985 New England Patriots. They, too, ran into a buzzsaw against perhaps the greatest Super Bowl team of all time, the 1985 Chicago Bears. That Bears squad had a young Jeff Fisher on its loaded defensive roster. Fisher was a quality safety at USC and a finer NFL head coach who would also make it to the Super Bowl with the Tennessee Titans.

This year is actually a quite rare event in that a Trojan isn't involved in either side. But, USC did have two of last year's Super Bowl stars with defenders Troy Polamalu and Lofa Tatupu.

The list goes on and on but you get the drift.