Dozens of USC and UCLA fans brawled before the crosstown rivals met on the gridiron at the Rose Bowl. (credit: CBS)

PASADENA (CBS) — Dozens of fans brawled in a Rose Bowl parking lot before the Southern California-UCLA football game Saturday, leaving two men stabbed, two police officers with minor injuries and three men arrested, authorities said.

Police say about 40 fans of both schools fought at about 4:20 p.m. in a grassy part of Brookside Golf Course that the stadium uses for event parking, some three hours before the crosstown-rivalry game between the Bruins and Trojans was set to start, Pasadena police Cmdr. Darryl Qualls said. The melee began with a pickup football game in the parking lot that turned violent when someone complained they were getting too close to a car.

The Los Angeles Times reported Vimal Patel, a 24-year-old Cal State Fullerton student, was in intensive care at Huntington Memorial Hospital and Joshua Dirling, 27, was stabbed in the cheek, with a knife tip embedded in his cheekbone.

One officer was treated for a sprained hand, the other for a sprained ankle, and both were released, Qualls said.

Arturo Cisneros, 44, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, police said. Steven Radu, 27, and Joshua Elder, 23, were arrested for investigation of assault on a police officer. They were being held in Pasadena City Jail.

Police did not know if any of the men had retained attorneys.

The names of the victims and suspects were not immediately released.

It was not immediately clear what sparked the brawl, but police said the school rivalry and tailgate party drinking were major factors.

“The fans are pretty passionate about their football teams,” Qualls said.

Qualls said that the last time the annual rivalry game was held at the Rose Bowl in 2008, there were about 50 arrests, but does not believe any of them were for assault.

“It doesn’t happen at normal college football games,” he said.

2 Stabbed In Brawl Among USC, UCLA Fans At Rose Bowl: KNX 1070’s Chris Sedens reports. https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/14984641/2010/12/rose-bowl-brawl-2.mp3

The brawl occurred before most fans or either team had arrived at the Rose Bowl, but thousands of tailgating fans spent most of the day gathered around RVs or barbecues in quiet Arroyo Seco, waiting for the late kickoff dictated by television coverage.

UCLA’s rivalry with USC is among the most intense in college football, pitting two schools separated by just 13 miles between USC’s downtown campus and UCLA’s Westwood address. The rivalry divides fans from every section of Los Angeles, sometimes even splitting families.

UCLA was overshadowed while the Trojans won seven straight Pac-10 titles during the past decade. Saturday’s 80th meeting between the teams was for nothing but civic pride, with the Bruins failing to qualify for a bowl game and USC banned from the postseason by NCAA sanctions.

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