The Pac-12 will get a team in the College Football Playoff in 2024. Expansion from four to 12 teams will ensure that the conference has a place at the table. It would obviously be a point of pride to break this playoff drought in 2023, while the playoff field is still only four teams for one more season.
Is it going to happen, at USC or anywhere else in the conference?
To be brutally honest, the odds aren’t great.
Oh, it could certainly happen. It’s not as though it’s just a five-percent chance or anything remote like that. However, it’s also not a 50-percent chance. This is going to be really difficult.
The SEC has a great chance to get two teams into the field. Alabama is bound to be better. LSU could be better than it was last season. Tennessee will be a factor. The Big Ten probably won’t get two teams in, but if the SEC gets two, that would be more than enough to put the squeeze on the Pac-12.
Then consider the reality that the Pac-12 is going to be a steel-cage battle royale in 2023, with Oregon and Washington and Utah all joining USC in a fight for supremacy. Oregon State could be involved in the mix as well. These teams are going to beat each other up. It would be a tremendous season to go 8-1 in nine conference games. USC has to play Notre Dame on the road. The Trojans could go 10-2 and have a really good season. Making the playoff is going to be hugely difficult.
We talked to Mark Rogers at The Voice of College Football.
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