Putting the 2022 USC football season in perspective: no playoff, but so many other achievements

It’s painful to fall short of the playoff, but step back for a moment: If you had been told in August this team would go 11-2, you’d have taken it. More at the @VoiceOfCFB.

The past week and a half has been a complicated time to be a USC football fan on a purely emotional level. College Football Playoff hopes were real and alive on the morning on Friday, Dec. 2, when the Trojans prepared to face Utah in the Pac-12 Championship Game in Las Vegas. Utah was far from 100-percent healthy. The Trojans were intent on getting revenge.

Then they grabbed a 17-3 lead and had the ball in Utah territory. In that one moment, everything seemed possible.

Then Caleb Williams got hurt. Then the Utah lines — on both sides of the ball — began to wear down the Trojans. Then the game snowballed in the other direction. Before Lincoln Riley knew it, USC had been blasted by a 47-24 score, and the playoff dream had died.

There’s no need to avoid the uncomfortable truth: That was painful. It will continue to sting into the offseason. Losing twice to Utah hurts.

Yet, as much as this loss will linger — missing the playoff by one game is a big deal — it remains that USC transcended most expert predictions in 2022. The Trojans won 11 games, played for the Pac-12 title, and reached a New Year’s Six bowl game while producing the eighth Heisman Trophy winner in school history, Caleb Williams.

We talked about this complicated season and its mixed emotions with Mark Rogers at The Voice of College Football:

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