USC football might have a better chance of making a 24-team College Football Playoff than the current 12-team field, but would that really make Trojan fans happier? USC would feel like a charity case, not an earner of a significant achievement, if it got into the back end of a very large playoff field. Consider this from ESPN’s Bill Connelly:
“Based on how the CFP rankings looked the week before Championship Week in 2025 — remember, conference title games would be eliminated in the 24-team model — we would have been looking at something like this for a 2025 24-team CFP:
17 Virginia (10-2) at 16 USC (9-3) — winner plays at 1 Ohio State (12-0)
24 North Texas (11-1) at 9 Alabama (10-2) — winner plays at 8 Oklahoma (10-2)
21 Houston (9-3) at 12 Miami (10-2) — winner plays at 5 Oregon (11-1)
20 Tulane (10-2) at 13 Texas (9-3) — winner plays at 4 Texas Tech (11-1)
22 Georgia Tech (9-3) at 11 BYU (11-1) — winner plays at 6 Ole Miss (11-1)
19 Michigan (9-3) at 14 Vanderbilt (10-2) — winner plays at 3 Georgia (11-1)
23 Iowa (8-4) at 10 Notre Dame (10-2) — winner plays at 7 Texas A&M (11-1)
18 Arizona (9-3) at 15 Utah (10-2) — winner plays at 2 Indiana (12-0)
“With this in mind, let’s think about how Rivalry Week would have played out with a 24-team playoff and compare that with what happened with a 12-teamer. In real life, Michigan needed a miracle upset of Ohio State to have any playoff hope. Instead, the Wolverines lost by 18. With a 24-team CFP, they’re comfortably in regardless.
“Alabama had to beat Auburn to keep its place in the CFP field and proceeded to blow a 17-point lead before rallying to win late. Meanwhile, Oklahoma needed to beat LSU to hold on to a berth and trailed with five minutes left before a late score. With a 24-teamer, both teams are comfortably in (and have opening-round home games) regardless.
“Texas and Vanderbilt needed to beat rivals Texas A&M and Tennessee, respectively, and hope for some chaos above them to get into the field. (They won, but they didn’t get the chaos.) With a 24-teamer, they’re both in regardless.
“In theory, No. 23 Georgia Tech facing Georgia could have had playoff stakes with a 24-teamer, but the committee actually boosted the Yellow Jackets in the rankings after another loss to the Dawgs. Turns out, they’re in regardless.
“Only two rivalry games are enhanced by a 24-teamer: Arizona would have replaced Arizona State in the field with a 23-7 win in the Territorial Cup, and Virginia would have clinched both an ACC title and a CFP berth with a 27-7 win over Virginia Tech. Meanwhile, No. 19 Tennessee got beaten so badly by Vandy that the Vols would have fallen out — resulting in some solid schadenfreude — and No. 21 SMU would have fallen out with an upset loss to Cal. They’re replaced by Iowa (which blew out Nebraska) and, in theory, North Texas (which blew out Temple). (Why “in theory”? Because with the CFP committee’s historic view of mid-major teams, I can’t say it would be a surprise if the second-best Group of 6 team tended to rank no higher than 25th. The cynic in me says that Tennessee might have grabbed that last spot in the field instead.)
“Now, the Territorial Cup is a spicy and underrated rivalry, and a field rush in Charlottesville would have been fun. But we’re enhancing two or three games while diminishing five or six others, including some of the sport’s most marquee annual matchups. And if we’d had a 24-team playoff the past two seasons, its teams would have averaged 46.0 combined losses, or just shy of two losses per team. Every time we add a certain percentage of teams, we end up with an even higher percentage of mulligans to tolerate.”
Connelly makes informed points about how a 24-team CFP will devalue rivalry games. More than that, however, a 24-team CFP simply devalues the whole season and the whole sport. USC being a 16 seed just feels wrong and almost empty. It’s up to the Trojans to be a top-10 team so that if/when they make the College Football Playoff, they’re going in by the front door, not the back one.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: USC football needs to make sure it doesn’t become CFP charity case