People outside USC recognize how high a standard the Trojans have set in football scheduling over the years. USC hasn’t played an FCS team, for one thing. USC football takes on all comers. It has done so for a long time. Fighting Irish Wire understands this:
Don’t get it confused, just because we’re a site that covers Notre Dame doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate what USC does annually away from their conference. USC has always played an impressive schedule. Regardless of the Pac 12’s (or 10 or 8) strength in a given year, USC has always kept their annual rivalry with Notre Dame on the schedule as well as usually played another traditionally strong foe.
Alabama, Texas, and BYU have all been scheduled for by USC in the last decade so scheduling tough competition outside of the conference is nothing new to the Trojans. It’s just something their current head coach seems to have no interest in continuing.
Attempts by USC to back away from tougher nonconference scheduling would be understood, but that doesn’t mean people would continue to respect the Trojans at the same level.
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