<p>Your comments on the visits help a lot. My first suggestion would be to consider some other public universities with big sports programs. Wisconsin, University of Washington (I know, a Pac 10 UCLA rival but it’s not 'SC so you should be able to manage 
), U of Florida. I hear of a lot of kids from he SoCal area heading to Arizona (U of A). A lot also head to Eugene for the U of Oregon, but I don’t know if Eugene would be your kind of town. It sounds like your parents may not be overwhelmed with those as choices, but maybe worth a look. Pittsburgh has rolling admissions. Each of these has strong academics if you want them, a lot of school spirit, and an interesting area. </p>
<p>For more privates, I’ve no idea how these would fit you for reach/match, but Emory, WUSTL, maybe George Washington? Or, see if venturing up to Canada and considering McGill is a possibility. </p>
<p>Also, you could now take your bump post and with an appropriate title like “Looking for schools like USC that aren’t USC” post that separately and see what you get back from other forum denizens.</p>