I’ve been blogging at this address for, oh, two whole months now, but …

But almost nothing I have written here has gotten the attention that a post about O.J. Mayo and USC has in just a matter of days.

I’m not sure what I could have written or posted, aside perhaps from video of me setting myself on fire, that would have gotten so many hits.

And I’ve been thinking about why that might be.

1. Much of the attention has come from people clicking over on links from UCLA sports fan sites. The Bruins Nation apparently is keen to see the Trojans carried out on their shields, and it could happen — which has them panting with anticipation.

When somebody not tied to either school (that would be me) suggests the Trojans might be innately ethics-challenged … the Bruins love to read that.

(Perhaps particularly when it relates to men’s basketball, UCLA’s pride and joy, which seemed under serious Troy assault — for the first time since Bob Boyd and Paul Westphal — when Tim Floyd recruited the likes of O.J. Mayo.)

2. The mainstream media, which has done the heavy lifting so far on the Mayo case (beginning with ESPN, then pursued by the L.A. Times), perhaps is not giving this story the coverage USC and UCLA people would prefer. There is a hunger out there for more information, more informed (or semi-informed) speculation. Which, again, is where I come in.

That is, this story is even bigger than sports media executives realize.

At the bottom of this?

I believe it represents the playing out of certain historical, perhaps cliche, themes between college sports’ most bitter same-city rivals.

The Gutty Little Straight-Shooting Bruins … vs. the Arrogant (for Good Reason) Trojans.

And all the stereotypes, most of which are grounded in a semblance of reality, are at play. They are being reinforced. Even luxuriated in.

The Trojans cheat. They will stop at nothing. They recruit knuckleheads and give access to sleaze balls. They don’t even bother perpetuating the romantic fiction of “student athlete.” They believe they are special, that they can buy their way out of anything, and their tight little mafia-like Trojan Family will protect them from anything anywhere anytime.

The Bruins are jealous little nerds with no breeding and less money who never could have rushed even the lowest frat/sorority house at USC. They have a silly preoccupation with rules and fairness that shows them to be out of touch with How the World Really Works, and allows the Trojans to beat them regularly in sports that matter. (Well, football, that is, and sometimes hoops.)

I’m not saying the two paragraphs, above, are accurate. But I take those to be the stereotypes that many fans of the two athletic programs bring to the discussion. And when events seem to take us in directions already well-traveled … well, it’s a bit more fun.

The only surprise bigger, to me, than UCLA fans reveling in this … is the lack of Trojans rising up to defend Heritage Hall from attack — by attacking me, suggesting I am a Bruin fellow-traveler or (the perfidy!) perhaps even a Bruin myself.

(I’m not. I went to Long Beach State, which allows both Bruins AND Trojans to look down on me.)

And this tells us all that the Lakers may be kings of L.A. sports, but the UCLA-USC feud lasts forever, and it is waiting to blaze into flame at the slightest spark.