USC heads into Saturday’s trip to Indiana with its own playoff path in mind, but the Trojans could end up shaping the Big Ten race for two teams that looked far safer a few months ago.
That’s the twist in this wildly messy November picture: Oregon and Ohio State are still hanging around, even with three losses apiece. Neither team is in line for an at-large College Football Playoff bid, but both can still reach the field by winning the Big Ten. And USC may be the program that decides whether that door stays open.
The setup is simple enough. Oregon and Ohio State each have one nonconference loss and two Big Ten losses, which leaves them alive in the conference title chase.
The catch is that only two teams have fewer than two losses in the league: UCLA and Indiana. So if USC goes into Bloomington and beats one-loss Indiana, the whole thing gets scrambled.
That would push Indiana into the group of teams with two Big Ten losses and open the door for Oregon and Ohio State to move back into the mix for the Big Ten Championship Game. UCLA sits atop the conference with zero losses, and a USC win would create a multi-team tiebreaker for the second title game spot behind the Bruins.
It’s a strange place for the season to be, especially considering how little of this would have seemed possible in early September. But here we are: USC’s result against Indiana could end up keeping Oregon and Ohio State’s slim playoff hopes alive.
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Mia Tvrdy, London Wijay and Adonia Faumuina were central to the response, giving USC the steadier, more complete performance it needed after a rough stretch. It was the sort of win that does more than just change the record for a night - it gives a team a chance to breathe, regroup and start building again with a little more confidence. [Read more 🡒]