USC’s last five regular-season games are set up to decide everything.
The No. 19 Trojans are 6-1 after that statement 31-23 road win over Penn State at Beaver Stadium, and now the path to a possible first College Football Playoff berth in program history runs straight through the closing stretch of Lincoln Riley’s fifth season.
It is not a soft landing by any stretch. Three of the five remaining opponents are ranked in the AP Top 25: No.
4 Ohio State on Oct. 31, No.
5 Indiana on Nov. 14 and No. 12 UCLA on Nov.
That run starts after USC’s first bye week with a trip to Wisconsin, where Luke Fickell’s Badgers await at Camp Randall Stadium. The matchup is another road test that figures to be settled late, much like the Trojans’ win over Penn State. Wisconsin enters at 4-1 overall and 2-0 in Big Ten play, and Fickell has steadied things ahead of a primetime road game against UCLA.
Colton Joseph has been the engine for the Badgers. Through five games, he leads Wisconsin in both passing and rushing with 1,132 passing yards, 10 touchdown passes and five interceptions, plus 262 rushing yards and three scores on the ground. With NBC carrying the game under the lights, USC will have to handle another hostile environment and another late-game push.
The most daunting date on the schedule comes next, when Ohio State visits the Coliseum on Halloween. After losing to Oregon on Sept. 26 at home, USC will try to land the upset, but the Trojans will need much more than a big day on offense.
The real question is whether the defense can slow a Buckeyes attack led by quarterback Julian Sayin. Ohio State wideout Jeremiah Smith, the Heisman Trophy front-runner, is projected to give USC’s secondary plenty of trouble, and that edge helps tilt the game toward a Buckeyes road win.
Following the second bye week, USC heads to Bloomington to face Indiana. The Hoosiers have been tested, with narrow calls against No.
25 Northwestern and Nebraska, but Curt Cignetti’s group still sits among the top teams in the Big Ten and in the country. Josh Hoover is in charge of the offense, and he has help from receivers Nick Marsh and Charlie Becker.
That combination is enough to create problems for USC’s defense and enough for Indiana to make key second-half plays and pull away.
The Trojans then return home for senior day against Maryland, and that one sets up as the most comfortable game left on the slate. The Terrapins are 2-4 overall and 0-3 in Big Ten play, and all three of their conference losses - to Ohio State, UCLA and Nebraska - have come by double digits. By the end of the season, or possibly before it, coach Mike Locksley may be out.
USC’s finale against UCLA has all the markings of a major game in its own right. The 2026 Crosstown Rivalry is expected to draw plenty of attention because both teams are likely to be ranked.
UCLA has been one of the sport’s biggest surprise stories, with Bob Chesney turning a three-win team from a year ago into a College Football Playoff contender. But the Bruins lost star quarterback Nico Iamaleava to a season-ending knee injury, and that opens the door for USC to close the regular season by keeping the Victory Bell for a third straight year.
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For Ohio State, the intrigue is less about whether it belongs in the conversation and more about how it handles the games pressure points with key players out. Indianas perfect start and stingy defense create the sort of setting where every possession can matter, and the matchup feels like the kind of test that can tell you whether the Buckeyes are simply surviving their schedule or still sharpening into the team they think they can be. [Read more 🡒]