USC’s path to the College Football Playoff is still open, but the Trojans have reached the part of the season where every week can change the picture.
At 7-2 overall and 4-2 in Big Ten play, USC sits at No. 18 in the latest CFP poll released Tuesday. Winning the rest of the way would give the Trojans their best shot at landing in the 12-team field, but that alone may not be enough. With three conference games left, the margin for error is thin, and November is where the real sorting begins.
“It’s where you want to be, right here in November, with everything sitting in front of you,” USC head coach Lincoln Riley said. “We’ve worked hard, and it hasn’t been perfect. But there’s been a lot more good than bad, and that’s why we’re one of the few teams that sits here right now.”
The next step comes this weekend at Indiana, the reigning national champion and No. 9 team in this week’s CFP poll. Riley made it clear the Trojans are leaning into the moment.
“This is what we’ve wanted,” Riley said. “This is where we expected to be in a game like this against a quality opponent like this, and so we’re going to go embrace it and look to make the most of what we all have worked so very hard for.”
The CFP will update its rankings every week, with the final release set for Dec. 6.
The 12-team playoff starts Dec. 18 and 19. Four automatic bids go to the Power Four conference champions, while the highest-ranked team from the American Athletic Conference, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West Conference, Pac-12 Conference and Sun Belt Conference also gets an automatic spot.
After that, seven at-large bids remain.
For USC, the challenge is not just surviving the schedule. It’s doing it with a young roster that has already been asked to carry a lot.
Three of the Trojans’ top four receivers are true freshmen: Trent Mosley with 512 yards, Kayden Dixon-Wyatt with 443 and Mark Bowman with 283. Another first-year Trojan, Luke Wafle, leads all defensive players with 8.5 tackles for a loss of 21 yards and is tied for the team lead in sacks. Shahn Alston is third on the team in rushing yards with 120, while offensive linemen Kannon Smith and Vlad Dyakonov have each started at some point this season.
That youth has come with pressure, but also with experience. USC has thrown those freshmen into meaningful football, and Riley believes that matters.
“Playing in either the Big Ten or the SEC (gets you) prepared for these games,” Riley said. “Whether it’s big end-of-season games, playoff games, championship games.
“The more you’re used to being at that level of competition, where you’ve got to play really good and the other group’s good - it makes the games feel different. It’s a different type of feeling and a different type of strain that it takes to win and excel in those games.”
Charles Davis, who will be on the call for Saturday’s game in Bloomington, Indiana, pointed to the added weight that comes with this stretch of the season.
“There’s the sense that every snap carries a little extra pressure,” said CBS analyst Charles Davis.
“What impression are you going to leave when you go down in the stretch? Add in the fact that you’re trying to get to a college football playoff - oh, they’ll remember what you do in November. Because if you don’t get there, you’ll be doing a heavy post-mortem.”
Health is another piece of the equation, and not a small one. The end of the season has already taken a toll on teams around the country.
Ohio State has lost quarterback Julian Sayin due to injury. Texas is without offensive lineman Trevor Goosby.
Miami receiver Malachi Toney is out for the time being. Oregon quarterback Dante Moore is done for the season.
USC has dealt with some injury issues of its own, but nothing that has knocked the Trojans off course. The new Bloom Football Performance Center has played a part in that resilience, with recovery tools that include hot-and-cold contrast rehab pools, AI-powered massage chairs, red light therapy and sensory deprivation float beds.
“That, with (performance) Coach Tru (Trumaine Carroll) and athletic medicine, that whole group - everybody’s buying into helping Trojans win and helping each other feel better and push each other,” quarterback Jayden Maiava said.
USC can control plenty of what comes next, but not everything. The broader playoff race has been messy all season, and that chaos could matter just as much as what the Trojans do on the field.
Miami, which opened the season as the original No. 1 in the initial CFP rankings, has dropped to No. 7 after last week’s loss to Notre Dame. Five of the Top 12 teams in the rankings already have two losses.
In the AP Top 25, only No. 2 Utah and No.
4 UCLA remain unbeaten, and five different teams have held the No. 1 spot this season.
“I don’t think there’s a super team out there,” Davis said. “I think that there are a lot of very good teams and they have proven conclusively that you can get beat.”
That leaves USC with a simple but demanding mission: keep winning, keep healthy and keep November from slipping away. The Trojans have called this stretch “The time is now,” and the next three games will show whether that slogan turns into something bigger.
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