USC's College Football Playoff fate was seemingly delivered well in advance of the Trojans' Pac-12 championship showdown with Oregon on Friday.

The latest CFP rankings were released Tuesday night with 5-0 USC moving up only 2 spots to No. 13 after its wild win over UCLA last weekend.

In addition to the top 4 of 10-0 Alabama, 10-0 Notre Dame, 9-1 Clemson and 5-0 Ohio State, the Trojans are behind three other SEC teams (7-1 Texas A&M, 8-2 Florida and 7-2 Georgia), a pair of 2-loss Big 12 teams (8-2 Iowa State and 7-2 Oklahoma), a pair of unbeaten Group of Five teams (8-0 Cincinnati and 11-0 Coastal Carolina) and a 6-1 Indiana team.

CFP committee chairman Gary Barta was asked about USC's standing on Tuesday night.

"USC is undefeated, and they've moved up each week in the polls. They've been moving up. The thing that the committee did note -- and we watch all the games -- I think Kedon Slovis is a terrific quarterback. St. Brown the last two games especially has been on fire. The thing that I will tell you the committee has taken note on -- there's not a top-25 win in those five games," Barta said, according to The Oklahoman. "The other thing, three of those games against teams that are under .500, in three of those games, USC was behind in the fourth quarter and had to -- and good for them, they made the comeback -- but I think this past weekend it was inside of 30 seconds that they had to make a comeback and win. It's important to win, but the committee watches all the games, and who you play is important and how you win those games is also important."

Indeed, USC was down 13 points in the final 3 minutes against Arizona State (which is now 1-2), also needed a game-winning drive at the end against Arizona (0-5) and then rallied from 18-down Saturday in the second half to stun UCLA (3-3). In between, the Trojans won by 16 points against Utah (2-2) and by 25 against Washington State (1-2).

So what does USC coach Clay Helton think of his team's ranking and national perception? He shared his thoughts Wednesday.

"I told the kids, I've always thought respect is earned. When we went into this, we knew we were behind the sticks. We knew. Our goal was to be 1-0 in every week. We felt wins were important, and somehow, someway our chance of being recognized nationally would need to be an undefeated season with the number of games that we had. We did lose a game, which was unfortunate, but we have a chance to build a resume of six games and show who we are," Helton said. "I am biased, and you've got to realize that -- I'm the head coach of USC and I love these kids and I love what they're about. Do I feel like we're a top 10 team? Yes. It's not my job to say ...

"The committee's job is to pick the four best teams, and they've done a wonderful job. Our job is to go 1-0 every week and we've got a chance to go 1-0 this week. Not everybody's playing, not everybody gets a chance to play in a championship game this week and be a Pac-12 champion or a conference champion, so this is a huge week for our resume and we'll see where it takes us. But obviously you gain respect by earning it, and we've got to go out there this week and earn more respect. That's what's kind of got a chip on our shoulder right now, so we look forward to the next opportunity."

The Trojans will try to move to 6-0, win their first Pac-12 title since 2017 and earn more respect, but it does not seem there is any path to true consideration for the CFP at this point. A win Friday, though, would send USC to the Fiesta Bowl.