USC’s trip to Indiana next Saturday carries weight well beyond the Trojans and the Hoosiers. It’s a major game for Lincoln Riley’s team, a huge one for Indiana, and one that could ripple through the entire Big Ten championship picture.
In fact, with one exception, the rest of the conference will be pulling for USC on November 14.
UCLA is the outlier. The Bruins hate USC and will want no part of helping the Trojans. Everyone else still alive in the Big Ten football championship race has a reason to want USC to beat Indiana in Bloomington.
The standings make the situation pretty clear. UCLA has no losses and can clinch a spot in Indianapolis in December before it even plays USC.
It needs just two wins to lock up a berth in the Big Ten Championship Game. The rest of the league is operating on much thinner margins, and most of those teams need USC to do them a favor against the Hoosiers.
Indiana enters with one Big Ten loss and sits ahead of several teams that already have two. Those teams are all hoping USC can knock off the Hoosiers.
Ohio State is among them. Even with two conference losses, the Buckeyes still have a path, and a USC win over Indiana would help keep it alive.
Ohio State lost head to head to USC and would not win a two-team tiebreaker, but it would want USC to beat Indiana and then lose to UCLA. In that scenario, the Buckeyes could still have a route to Indianapolis because they hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over Indiana.
Oregon, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin are also sitting on two Big Ten losses and still hanging around the race. They, too, will be rooting for USC this weekend.
It has been a strange Big Ten season already, and there are more twists ahead. For now, USC is positioned right in the middle of one of the conference’s biggest games of Week 11.
In Other News...
Oregon Suddenly Has A Real Opening After Wild AP Poll Chaos
USCs place in the national picture got a little more interesting this week when the Trojans landed at No. 20 in the first College Football Playoff rankings, even though they were slotted higher in the AP Top 25. It was a reminder of how differently the two polls can view a team, especially in a season where the margins are thin and the committee is weighing more than just wins and losses.
The chaos around the country only adds to the intrigue, with multiple top-10 teams falling over the weekend, including Ohio State and Kentucky. The AP Poll is expected to react accordingly, and USC should benefit from the shakeup, even if only slightly, as the broader rankings settle into a new order. [Read more 🡒]
BYU Still Has A Real Top 10 Case After Rivalry Loss
Saturdays chaos reshaped the AP Top 25 again, with eight ranked teams taking losses and the No. 1 team falling as well. It was the kind of weekend that ripples far beyond one scoreboard, creating another shakeup at the top of the poll and opening the door for teams that survived to make their case as the season keeps tightening up.
For USC fans keeping an eye on the national picture, the bigger takeaway is how fragile the pecking order remains. Several teams moved in and out of the rankings after the latest results, and the next round of games will matter just as much as the last one in deciding who stays in the top 10 conversation and who gets pushed out of it. [Read more 🡒]
USCs Elijah Paige Is Forcing A Bigger NFL Draft Conversation
Elijah Paige is starting to draw the kind of NFL attention that can change the way a college season is viewed, and it is happening fast. Rob Rang recently projected the USC offensive tackle as a potential top-10 pick in the upcoming draft, a level of buzz that puts Paige in rare company and underscores how highly evaluators are beginning to think of his game. Rang even drew a comparison to Ronnie Stanley, a sign that Paiges blend of size, movement and pass-protection upside is resonating beyond the usual preseason chatter.
For USC, the bigger takeaway is what Paige means to the Trojans right now as much as what he might become later. His presence has helped anchor an offense that needs stability up front, and the draft conversation is only going to grow if he keeps building on that foundation. Rang pointed to the Houston Texans as a possible landing spot because of their need at left tackle, which only adds another layer to the intrigue surrounding a player whose stock appears to be rising quickly. [Read more 🡒]