Had not been home during college football season in a long time. So when we settled on this trip to SoCal, I checked the schedules of USC and UCLA.

And there it was: USC home to Notre Dame. Even spending only 10 days in Southern California … I wanted to be there.

At one point in this century, I covered three straight USC-Notre Dame games, including the 2005 game in South Bend that USC won on the last play of the game.

It is intense stuff. Especially when both teams are good, which was not quite the case this year.

All the things that go around it. The bands, the cheerleaders, the fans, Traveller, the leprechaun, the fight songs. (Two of the best known in college football: Fight On; the Notre Dame Victory March.)

The recollection of great games past is a big deal, too, like USC 55-24 in 1974 — a game I gave up on at halftime and went out to play basketball when it was 24-6 ND. Missing a great, great comeback.

I had not been in a college football press box since 2009, and I was reminded that it is a bit of a chore. Especially the big games. The traffic. The grind to the parking lot. The credential pickup. The crowded press box. I’m not sure I could do it on a regular basis anymore.

Plus, the college game can be really long. Four hours, no problem. They need to think of ways to speed up the process. The NFL does it in three.

My intent was to write a story for The National about college football rivalries, and I may still do it, but I lost the enthusiasm to do so today soon after the game started, at the venerable (some would say decrepit) Coliseum.

USC took a 35-0 lead, and a post-game attempt to gather opinions on how great this rivalry was/is (“the greatest intersectional rivalry in the country!”) seemed unlikely, given what a blowout it turned into.

But it was fun to be in the press box, with some borrowed binoculars, watching each play from high above the field. As, like the night before, I saw a few people I remembered from back in the day … the older versions of the people they were then.

I left at halftime. People were not going to stay till the end, and even though I wouldn’t have minded going down to the field and walking up the tunnel … I preferred to leave early. If I didn’t, I would be there for five hours.

It ended 49-14, USC avoiding being swept by UCLA and Notre Dame for a third straight year.

I was glad to be there. The familiarity of it, filtered through several years of disconnection. Old but also a bit new.

I don’t know how many more of these I will do. If that was the last, USC-Notre Dame is a good way to go out.