In 2022, USC hoped to be in the College Football Playoff, but the uncertainties attached to Year 1 of the Lincoln Riley era made it harder to expect elite results.
In 2023, after USC won 11 games in 2022, expecting a playoff result comes much more readily and naturally to the Trojans. Therefore, falling short of the playoff would sting a little more than it did last year.
Let’s say this much about the expectations for USC in 2023: If the team doesn’t make the playoff, the one thing which would salvage the season and enable the program to say that it didn’t waste Caleb Williams’ luminous talents would be a Pac-12 championship.
Winning the conference in USC’s final year as a Pac-12 member would be richly satisfying, and an eternal memory for fans and alumni. USC fans are so ready to head to the Big Ten, but leaving without a Pac-12 trophy would invite an offseason filled with comments in the vein of, “You want to move up to the Big Ten, but you couldn’t win the Pac-12!”
USC doesn’t want to deal with that.
Playoff or bust? Fair enough.
Pac-12 title or bust? That’s the absolute must-have goal for the Trojans this year.
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