No one actually thinks Utah - USC would ever reach the levels of the ND, Stanford, or UCLA game. But it certainly was reaching the kind of rivalry being developed between USC and Oregon over the last two decades.
Certainly last year, it was a majorly important game to USC and they wanted revenge. So maybe it was a one-year rivalry, but to say the fans or team didn't care any more about it than they did, say, the Arizona game is stupid and ignorant.