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The game started under a thicket of silver and gray clouds. It ended even more ominously for the home team.

As USC players trudged sullenly toward the tunnel at the Coliseum, their UCLA counterparts sprinted across the field to reclaim the Victory Bell painted in red, at least for the moment.

The celebratory tour made its next stop in a corner of the stadium overflowing with jubilant Bruins fans who chanted a vulgar two-word sendoff for fellow rivals headed to the Big Ten.

The revelry was just getting started.

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With a helpful tug from UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond, the bell made its way up the tunnel and into the Bruins locker room. That’s where Chip Kelly rang it in celebration of his team’s 38-20 victory, drowning out the noise that had surrounded the beleaguered coach all week.

“Didn’t bother this team one bit,” Kelly said of the speculation about his job status, “and you could see by the performance today.”

In a game matching strength (USC’s offense) versus strength (UCLA’s defense) and weakness (USC’s defense) versus weakness (UCLA’s offense), the Bruins dominated across the board while pulling together to win one for the Chipper.

The showing was all the more stunning considering it came only a week after a limp performance against Arizona State in which UCLA managed only seven points.

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The Bruins’ offense sprung back to life under quarterback Ethan Garbers, who threw for 155 yards and three touchdowns after sitting out last week’s loss because of a foot injury. Two of the touchdowns went to tight end Hudson Habermehl, who slipped two tackles and plunged into the end zone between three defenders on a 15-yard catch early in the fourth.

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“Today was probably one of the better days of my life for, sure,” Garbers said shortly after a smiling Kelly waved at him through a hole in the back of the media tent. “Had some dreams about this as a little kid.”

UCLA running back T.J. Harden helped make them come true, snagging a seven-yard touchdown pass early in the third quarter to extend the Bruins’ advantage to 21-10. Harden also ran for the game’s first score on a one-yard touchdown out of the T formation and finished with a career-high 142 yards rushing in 22 carries.

Putting USC’s running game on lockdown while keeping quarterback Caleb Williams on the run in what might have been his final game as a Trojan, UCLA’s defense gave up only three rushing yards and sacked Williams four times. Williams rolled up 384 passing yards but managed one touchdown while failing to sustain a rhythm as USC (7-5, 5-4) lost for the fifth time in six games.

“You may lose a close one here and there where it’s just right there one play here and there,” Trojans coach Lincoln Riley said, “but to not give yourself a chance like today, it’s unacceptable. So I gotta be better. There’s no way to look at this and say I did any kind of a good job and got the result that we did in the second half of the season. So I gotta be better in every single way possible.”

UCLA (7-4, 4-4) also forced three turnovers while committing none. The game was essentially decided early in the third quarter when Bruins cornerback Jaylin Davies knocked the ball out of running back MarShawn Lloyd’s hands, allowing nickel back Alex Johnson to scoop up the fumble and run 11 yards into the end zone.

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UCLA’s lead stood at 28-10, the only blemish coming when edge rusher Carl Jones Jr. flung the ball into the stands instead of giving it to his teammate.

“I talked to Carl,” Kelly deadpanned. “He told me he loved me and I was like ‘That doesn’t soften the blow.’”

Kelly said he was not troubled by a Bruin Report Online story early in the week stating he was likely to be fired.

After a UCLA official informed Kelly about the report, the coach said, Jarmond told him “it was inaccurate, inappropriate. I said, ‘All right, let’s go back to work.’

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1. UCLA cornerback Devin Kirkwood (3) celebrates after intercepting a pass from USC quarterback Caleb Williams in the first half. 2. UCLA running back Carson Steele breaks free from tackle attempts by USC defensive lineman Stanley Ta’ufo’ou (47) and linebacker Mason Cobb (13) in the second half. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) 3. UCLA tight end Hudson Habermehl dives into the end zone past USC safety Anthony Beavers Jr. (15) and defensive end Braylan Shelby (34) for a touchdown in the second half. 4. UCLA running back T.J. Harden runs with the ball as USC cornerback Domani Jackson tries to tackle him during the second half. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

“I don’t pay attention to that stuff. I don’t read that stuff, I’ve never seen that stuff — I talk about being the most prepared and the least distracted.

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“Then, why would I let something distract me? And if that’s the case, then I’m a fool ‘cause I’m not doing what I tell our players to do.”

As evidence of how locked in his team was, Kelly relayed a story about edge rusher Laiatu Latu being informed this week he was a finalist for the Lombardi Award that goes to the nation’s top lineman. When Kelly told him he intended to share the news with the team, Latu told him not to.

“I just want to win the game this week,” Latu said.

After clobbering Williams on back-to-back plays for sacks that forced a field goal and making a team-high seven tackles, Latu shared a hug with his mother, Kerry.

There were lots of tender moments among the Bruins. Kelly retold the story of legendary UCLA coach Terry Donahue advising him to beat the Trojans, noting he had gone 10-9 in the rivalry.

With the win in the teams’ final game as Pac-12 rivals, Kelly’s record against USC stands at 3-3.

The coach might have just won himself a chance to keep coaching in the rivalry for years to come.

“I mean, this entire performance was for him,” Garbers said. “It shows a lot about our team and a lot about his culture that we can come from last week ... and come out and do this and really shock the world a little bit.”

Another mediocre UCLA football season sadly devoid of surprises finally produced one.

They didn’t fire Coach Chip Kelly.

What? Wait! Why not?

What on earth is athletic director Martin Jarmond’s definition of UCLA football success?

“We want to compete at the highest level and graduate student-athletes at the highest level, recruit and develop young people that are great representatives of UCLA. That’s the goal,” Jarmond said. “If you look at our football program, we have great young men in our program. Chip has created a strong and phenomenal culture; it shows when we have so many guys that return and want to go for their masters degrees … the culture is very strong and the young men that come out of UCLA, out of this program, are great representatives. That’s important.”

Chip Kelly has not replicated the success he enjoyed at Oregon, but UCLA is standing by him as it moves to the Big Ten.

Nov. 27, 2023

So, yeah, he doesn’t have a good answer, either.

During a 30-minute discussion with Jarmond last week in the wake of his decision to keep Kelly despite six years of .500 football with no bowl wins, the Bruins’ sports boss strongly backed his coach with the meekest of reasons.

Jarmond talked about stability, continuity, culture — all sorts of things that didn’t address the issue of, you know, wins and losses.

Shouldn’t that be Jarmond’s bottom line? Wins and losses?

There is a sense something more than on-field success is involved here. Something about not wanting to make a major leadership change as the university enters a new chapter in a new Big Ten conference with a new chancellor. Something about not wanting to spend about $8.6 million to buy Kelly out of his contract.

Something about how, right now, mediocre is enough.

That doesn’t work for longtime Bruins fans. That doesn’t adhere to this city’s championship standards. That’s just one big shame.

“Continuity and stability are bedrocks of a successful program,” said Jarmond, who has yet to make a major coaching change in his 3½ years as athletic director. “We have so much change coming, we’re going to get a new chancellor, we’re going into a new conference, and so you really want that continuity and stability to usher you into a new era.”

— Martin Jarmond, UCLA athletic director, on UCLA’s NIL challenges

Do you really want to praise the continuity of a program that, in Kelly’s six seasons, has had two winning records in the Pac-12, a 5-13 record against teams in the top 25, and only seven wins against teams that finished the season with winning records? The closer you look at Kelly’s 34-34 overall mark, the worse it gets.

And do you really want to trumpet the stability of a program that ended this regular season sandwiching an inspirational win over USC with losses to Arizona State and California, two teams with a combined record of 9-15?

After that USC victory, Jarmond responded to Kelly critics with a social media post that read, “Read the room.”

After the ensuing loss to Cal, a fan helped raise $2,060 to fly a banner over Westwood reading, “Read the room — fire Chip Kelly.”

Two days later, another banner appeared in the sky supporting Kelly, and on and on it will go until UCLA decides to act like a Power Five university and deal with its most powerful employee.

USC Sports

Nov. 30, 2023

Jarmond explicitly said he wasn’t satisfied with the Bruins’ usual lackluster regular-season finish. He acknowledged he’s had discussions with Kelly about the $6-million coach’s need for improvement in some areas.

Jarmond is clearly not thrilled. But he is also clearly not doing anything about it, which certainly doesn’t compute with his statement about wanting to compete at the highest level. For many in Bruin Nation, with their team enduring questionable coaching and threadbare recruiting as it enters a 2024 season featuring games against Louisiana State, Penn State, Oregon and Washington, this is the lowest level.

Indeed, Jarmond needs to read the room.

“I’ve had conversations with Chip … we both understand that we’re not satisfied, especially with the way the regular season ended,” Jarmond said. “No one in that Wasserman [athletic department] building is satisfied … we know that we’ve got to improve in some areas … we’re going to work together to address those areas where we need more focus and emphasis.”

“I appreciate the passion of Bruin nation. I completely understand why fans aren’t satisfied with the outcome of the regular season. No one is satisfied.”

— Martin Jarmond, on the fan dissatisfaction

Although Jarmond would not disclose the nature of his conversations with Kelly — hopefully there was some screaming and shoe throwing — he did acknowledge that Kelly needs to be more involved in the donor-driven world of name, image and likeness athlete endorsement opportunities.

“Absolutely,” Jarmond said, addressing one of the biggest criticisms of Kelly’s tenure. “NIL is a major factor in college football today and so we have to put more emphasis and focus in providing NIL opportunities for our student-athletes. Chip understands that, we know we need to do more in that area.”

Kelly always has been reluctant to endear himself to alumni and boosters and the sort of folks to fund NIL collectives. He’s not been doing so well in cultivating superstars either. Just look at Dante Moore, the five-star quarterback who came to UCLA this season as the highest-ranked recruit of the Kelly era.

He had a horrible season, he never developed, he actually got worse and guess who just entered the transfer portal? His recent comments to 247Sports might be Kelly’s most damning indictment yet.

“For these next upcoming years, I just want to go to a place where I can get developed,” Moore told the website. “That’s the main thing is really development, making sure you’re bettering yourself every day and having a staff around you that’s going to help develop you. So I’d say the biggest things are going to a place where I can get developed and continue to love and have fun playing football and be around a place that loves college football and be around great athletes.”

Sports

Jan. 22, 2024

He wasn’t being developed. He didn’t feel like Kelly’s staff was helping him grow. He didn’t think that UCLA was a place that loves college football. Wonderful.

“I have confidence in Chip and his staff that we’re going to continue to do the work to improve and get better and build on the positives,” Jarmond said, later adding, “I’ve seen Chip and his staff make improvements and get better and address areas where we’ve fallen short, and I have confidence we’ll continue to do that.”

Jarmond is happy that after Kelly went 10-21 his first three years, he was 24-13 in his next three years. He’s thrilled that Kelly’s defense has improved from one of the nation’s worst to one of its best, although it was Kelly’s loyalty to pal Jerry Azzinaro that mired the defense in the muck in the first place.

“You don’t look at one moment where there’s a high or a low, you look at a body of work, you look at trajectory, you look at improvement; that’s how I evaluate programs,” Jarmond said. “I’m excited, I think there’s so many positives with the program … we all understand we’ve got to do better, and we will do better. … I’m confident Chip and the staff are going to work together to tackle those areas we need to improve and get better.”

Judging from the buzz around town, most fans don’t share that confidence. Most fans wanted Kelly fired yesterday. Jarmond says he hears them. But does he listen?

“I take that a lot into consideration,” he said of fans’ input. “We need our fans and our booster and our alumni’s support. I appreciate the passion of Bruin Nation. I completely understand why fans aren’t satisfied with the outcome of the regular season. No one is satisfied.”

Yet apparently nothing is being done, which is the most unsatisfying thing of all.

During the course of the conversation, Jarmond tried hard to be convincing. He was not. He attempted to give solid reasons for keeping his coach. He could not.

Kelly is not the man to lead UCLA into the Big Ten, and here’s guessing most folks around campus know this, but Jarmond seemingly lacks both the timing and the tenure to make a change.

That’s too bad. He is, by all accounts, a good guy who is generally a strong and effective leader.

But when reading the room in the coming year, Martin Jarmond needs to know he will share responsibility with Chip Kelly for the mess within.

Start spreading the news, she’s already left!

Kelly Clarkson has moved her family and her talk show from Los Angeles to New York City. And now the Grammy winner is talking about her decision to move from one coast to the other.

“I’ll be real honest: I thought I was making a horrible decision,” Clarkson told USA Today about her relocation. “I knew I needed a fresh start and couldn’t be in L.A. I really wanted to be in Montana, but you can’t really do a show from there quite yet. So I was like, ‘The only other option would probably be New York.’”

In May, it was announced that the singer’s NBC daytime talk show would move from Universal City Studios in Los Angeles and begin filming at NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York at the start of its fifth season.

May 10, 2023

“‘The Kelly Clarkson Show’ will film in the iconic Studio 6A, the former home for late-night talk show hosts Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman and Conan O’Brien,” an NBCUniversal spokesperson said in a May statement to The Times.

And when it came time to choose her home in the Big Apple, the “Behind These Hazel Eyes” singer knew exactly what type of place she wanted.

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“At this point, I’m 40 years old. Mama rented something nice!,” Clarkson told USA Today. “I was like, ‘I’m not living here unless it’s right by the park and really nice for the kids.’”

The fifth season of the talk show launched on Monday with Clarkson’s NBC co-workers Seth Meyers of “Late Night” and NBC’s “Today” hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager as guests.

May 15, 2023

Clarkson seems smitten by the city’s charm. “I genuinely love it, and I love that my kids love it,” she said.

The “American Idol” winner’s show halted its production at the onset of the Hollywood writers’ strike in May.

“I felt in my gut, ‘This is what we should do,’ so we made the decision as a team to end Season 4 and stand with them,” Clarkson told USA Today of the decision. “I had a lot of hard conversations with people like, ‘Hey, we don’t know if the show is going to make it if you don’t come back.’ But that’s gotta be the hard decision, and it sucks. I don’t think people realize, with a lot of the people that got blowback, the stress of that decision.”

“The Kelly Clarkson Show” endured some blowback of its own after Rolling Stone published an article in May that highlighted allegations of a toxic workplace environment from current and former employees of the daytime program.

The former employees alleged mistreatment and favoritism from producers, deteriorating mental health because of treatment, lack of accountability despite multiple HR complaints, retaliation for filing HR complaints and inadequate pay among lower-level staffers.

Staffers said in the Rolling Stone report that Clarkson probably was unaware of the alleged mistreatment, with one former employee describing her as “fantastic” and as someone who treats her staff with “dignity and is incredibly appreciative.”

Clarkson responded to the behind-the-scenes allegations in a social media statement.

“I love my team at ‘The Kelly Clarkson Show,’ and to find out that anyone is feeling unheard and-or disrespected on the show is unacceptable,” the original “American Idol” winner said in a statement posted at the time to her social media accounts. “I have always been, and will continue to be, committed to creating and maintaining a safe and healthy environment.”

Times staff writer Jonah Valdez contributed to this report.

The visual choreography in “Controlled Burn,” a mural-scale video installation of elaborate pyrotechnics by Julian Charrière, transforms light-filled bursts of pinwheel energy into a mesmerizing dance of death. The projection at Sean Kelly Gallery runs on a 32-minute loop, and it’s hard to look away.

Energy is the work’s topical subject. Blockbuster beauty and epic disaster intertwine.

Tiny spots of bright, white light speckling a jet black field suggest a placid night sky. The spots begin to move, and slip-sliding traceries of luminosity explode. Smoke-shrouded rockets suddenly collapse into themselves, as if overheated galaxies crumpling into icy black holes. The soundtrack’s low rumble swells into a roar, while a quick dusty glimpse of desert floor in glowing raw sienna slams the boundless sky into the circumscribed earth. The noise subsides.

Then it’s off again, soaring through a gorgeous black and white fireworks display, an optical outtake as if from a fantasy Fourth of July, until a collapsing tower of rusted metal momentarily thrusts into view among shooting stars. Perhaps a rotting oil derrick, it could well be at the bottom of a poisoned sea.

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Charrière filmed these swooping, looping aerial scenes with a drone at open pit mines and oil drilling sites rigged with fireworks, then edited them into a measured composition with studied theatrical skill. Running clips forward and backward at variable speeds creates a dizzying apocalypse of explosion and implosion. A gallery handout says “flashing images of primordial unfurling ferns and fluttering moths” appear at subliminal speed, but I didn’t see them. (Such is subliminal perception.) No matter: The Swiss-born, Berlin-based artist has marshaled a lucid tone poem on energy as both fruitful power and injurious force. (Watch a clip of “Controlled Burn” here.)

The impressive exhibition — titled “Buried Sunshine,” a familiar description at once radiant and funerary — is Charrière’s Los Angeles debut. He localized the visually extravagant 2022 video projection with eight large new photographs, plus two sculptures from 2020. The pictures record L.A. and vicinity, the sculptures connect to Mesoamerican material culture.

The photographs are made using heliography — “sun writing,” a term coined by 19th century French photography pioneer Nicéphore Niépce — a technique akin to etching with light-sensitive materials on reflective pewter plates. Instead of pewter, Charrière employs polished stainless steel panels, the largest more than seven feet tall. The plates are treated with a light-sensitive emulsion that incorporates bitumen asphalt that the artist gathered from Southern California tar pits — La Brea, McKittrick and Carpinteria — and printed with aerial photographic views of regional oil fields, past and present.

The imagery is virtually abstract. The landscape being mapped goes in and out of view, swirls of color melting into urban street grids, hills flattening into patterned ripples. Color is a bilious miasma, golden tones sliding into flashes of brightness that collapse into queasy hues. The work is spotlighted in darkened galleries, which enhances the qualities of reflection in the metal plates, but it also interferes with close scrutiny. I wondered what the heliographs would look like in ordinary daylight.

Two sculptures are massive chunks of black obsidian, a glassy volcanic rock formed deep underground and a material found at many Mesoamerican archaeological sites. (It had both utilitarian and ritual uses.) They are titled with a suggested narrative: “Thickens, pools, rushes, slows.” Obsidian is a primordial ooze, its natural history connected to the heliographs and the projection. With portions carved as rounded bumps and curving hollows, the shiny forms make a sly visual connection with the bubbling asphalt surface at the La Brea Tar Pits.

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Charrière underscores cultural attraction as modern amusement, catastrophe be damned. In a precarious balancing act, he doesn’t pretend that either the ecological ruin or the pleasure isn’t real, instead articulating the anxious dilemma. Today, L.A.’s once-massive oil fields are mostly a memory, retained in archival photographs. But the memory is etched into daily life, as surely as it is in Charrière’s startling heliography.

"Buried Sunshine"

Where: Sean Kelly Gallery, 1357 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood

When: Through Nov. 4. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturdays

Info: (310) 499-0843, www.skny.com

Story highlights

Kelly Clarkson is leaving the life of glitz and glamour in Los Angeles and moving to the Big Apple. The singer has taken the decision to have a fresh start in New York two years after she divorced Brandon Blackstock.

Singer Kelly Clarkson is leaving the life of glitz and glamour in Los Angeles and moving to the Big Apple. The singer has taken the decision to have a fresh start in New York two years after she divorced Brandon Blackstock.

"I’ll be real honest: I thought I was making a horrible decision," Clarkson, 41, admitted to USA Today. "I knew I needed a fresh start and couldn’t be in LA."

The Kelly Clarkson Show host confessed what state she was considering moving to before she packed her bags for New York.

"I really wanted to be in Montana, but you can’t really do a show from there quite yet. So I was like, ‘The only other option would probably be New York.'"

The Grammy-winning singer relocated her daytime show for its fifth season to the East Coast, as her studio is located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

"At this point, I’m 40 years old. Mama rented something nice!" Clarkson remarked. "I was like, ‘I’m not living here unless it’s right by the park and really nice for the kids.’"

Clarkson shares two kids with her ex-husband Brandon Blackstock. The former couple married in 2013, and she filed for divorce in 2020 after seven years of marriage.

The singer stated that her divorce was part of the reason she decided to flee Los Angeles. She added that she’s the happiest she’s been in a long time with her divorce behind her.

"… full disclosure, I put on a smile a lot of those times because I was struggling a lot in my personal life," Clarkson shared with USA Today. "I've learned a lot about what I'm capable of handling, and also what you should not handle. That was me saying 'bye' to 'The Voice' and having this big move. I love that family, but I was like, 'I'm struggling. I can't smile anymore. I don't feel like smiling.’"

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