Maya Tenfold: USC must play the game within the game to rejoin elite
There’s no easy way to put this: USC has a fundamental flaw keeping it from reaching the highest level of college football, and the administration needs to make a change immediately. It’s been ailing the Trojans for several years now.
“Don’t tell Coach Helton that, will you? You’re absolutely right, Adam. By the way, you are on to something here.”
This is USC Senior Associate Athletic Director Steve Lopes, from a recent conversation we had about the football program. While we weren’t discussing coaching, the subject matter is just as impactful to the Trojans’ quest to win their 12th national title.
Two years ago you could argue it was even more important, as USC fell into such a big hole that not even a two-month long winning streak and the nation’s biggest climb in the rankings could pull the Trojans out in time.
Lopes and I were talking about scheduling.
For the fourth time in the CFP’s five-year history, USC was left out of the initial top-25 rankings. I understand if you didn’t even notice they were released earlier this week, and USC’s absence might seem like a moot point since the Trojans clearly aren’t among the nation’s elite this season.
We knew that by mid-September -- and that’s partly where the problem lies.
About 2,500 miles from USC’s nondescript conference tilt with Oregon State on Saturday night, an annual meeting between two of the best teams in the nation will take place -- Alabama at LSU. Both teams are coming off byes, which has been the case for the past six seasons. LSU hasn’t played Alabama without a preceding bye since 2009. Alabama has had a bye the week before LSU in 10 of Nick Saban’s 12 seasons.
Instead of trying to beat Alabama, in September on a not-so-neutral field in Texas, it’s time for USC to join the Crimson Tide by crafting the most favorable schedule possible within the constraints of its tradition and the Pac-12 conference.
Specifically, no more home and homes with Power Five programs or a competitive independent like BYU (USC plays the Cougars in Provo, Utah in 2019 and at the Coliseum in 2021 and 2023). Really, USC shouldn’t play anyone outside the Pac-12 that it wouldn’t be favored against by at least 20 points in a given year.
“If your goal is getting to the Final Four, you have to schedule around that way and the problem is you can’t turn the Titanic that quick. It’s been done so far in advance,” Lopes said. “We’re shifting our philosophy and we’re now looking to do seven home games as many times as we can, which means unfortunately maybe not good for college football but good for USC. You’re not going to have interconference rivalries like we’ve had with Texas and Arkansas and Ohio State and Nebraska.
“We’re already ahead of everybody else with nine Pac-12 games and Notre Dame. So when we do a Texas game, that’s almost insane.”
No kidding. This year’s trip to Austin created a set of circumstances that led to USC being the only Power Five school in the entire country to play three true road games against P5 programs in the month of September. A quick scan of the top 25 shows that nearly every school in it played just one true road game in the season’s first month.
“It was probably 10 years ago that we did that Texas agreement,” Lopes explained. “A lot of things changed from the time that contract was done until now.”
Two years ago, the Trojans opened with two true road games and took on Alabama at AT&T Stadium, leading to a 1-3 start. By season’s end, they were one of the country’s best teams and had no chance of being selected for the four-team playoff.
Last year USC was a contender until losing to Notre Dame in late October. Even had the Trojans made it through the regular season with one loss instead of two, Lopes agrees they were unlikely to supplant one-loss Alabama for the No. 4 spot. Given the Pac-12’s cementing reputation as the worst of the Power Five conferences, the CFP committee was unlikely to reward USC for playing Notre Dame, playing a Friday road game directly after a Saturday one, and going the first 12 weeks without a bye.
USC’s schedule the past three years has created more obstacles than opportunities. That was made painfully clear again this September when USC, one week after having to play at perennial conference power Stanford in Week 2, traveled to Texas, and was run off the field.
"Honestly, I knew it would be tough," Coach Clay Helton said. "I knew it would be a tough road. I knew we would have to play good football, and we didn't play good enough football. ... It’s something that I was hoping we could get through and win both of those games."
Six days later, USC took on a Washington State team that is currently ranked No. 8, before finishing the month with another road test -- its third in four weeks.
Alabama, LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Notre Dame all played exactly one true road game in September. All five are in the top 10 of this week’s CFP rankings. That’s not a coincidence.
“That’s a [Pac-12] issue,” Lopes said. “I do believe that the conference is looking at ways to help teams vis a vis other conferences in the scheduling.”
The Trojans’ lackluster performance during this stretch makes them unsympathetic for many, but the fact of the matter is no team in the country dealt with such a gauntlet in the first month of the season. There’s a reason most every program avoids true road games in September, since it’s supposed to be a time for a team to learn and grow and jell and form an identity.
“Every team goes through changes, goes through stages of finding themselves,” senior tailback Aca’Cedric Ware said. “September, you’re not always going to start out as the team you are in December or January. A lot of people are going to get better. Toward November, December, that’s when the team really starts finding out who they really are. That’s when they get their DNA.”
Ware was one of several USC players that I spoke with about those opening weeks, and, to a man, they all embraced the challenge. Junior wide receiver Michael Pittman admitted playing at Stanford and then at Texas the next week would probably be the toughest two games of the season, while noting that win or lose it would prepare the team for the rest of the season. It’s a noble stance, but it obviously didn’t come to fruition. It also doesn’t make sense for USC to play its hardest games at the beginning of the year.
Alabama, which should be mimicked as much as possible given its decade of dominance, not only has the annual bye before LSU but always plays an FCS school the week before its yearly clash with Auburn. Not a bad setup for what is typically its two toughest games of the season.
The Crimson Tide has mastered the game within the game.
USC, meanwhile, has some inherent challenges that will require the program to come out the pocket to produce a more favorable schedule. For starters, each season automatically involves five home games and five true road games, because of a nine-game conference slate and Notre Dame. One of those conference games is always Stanford, which has to be played within the first three weeks of the season. Lopes revealed that the conference stipulates all nonconference games to fall in this window, but it has given USC and Stanford a waiver to play Notre Dame later in the year so long as the USC-Stanford game falls within the first three weeks.
Lopes also said there’s been no dialogue within the Pac-12 about going from nine conference games to eight but has heard that other conferences have discussed uniformity across the P5 and everyone playing nine. Until the SEC and the ACC get on board, the Pac-12 should remove a game, an initiative I was told won’t happen because the Pac-12 feels its less popular teams would struggle more than it already does for exposure with four nonconference games.
“I do think it’s important for everyone to play the same number of conference games,” Lopes said.
Since the Trojans won’t be dropping rivals Notre Dame and Stanford anytime soon, their only method of approaching a level playing field is being shrewd with their other two nonconference games. Given USC's history of never scheduling an FCS team, its final two tilts should be at home against Group of Five schools.
“We’re going to look for more games that we don’t have to return,” Lopes insisted, though he says the market of teams residing west of the Rockies that are willing to come to the Coliseum for a one-off affair is fairly shallow.
Lopes said that's why he scheduled another date with Alabama in 2020. I couldn’t help but ask why USC would play the Crimson Tide in September again after what happened last time and given how it seems to contradict what he stated above.
“They’re also playing us,” Lopes countered. “But we want a challenging schedule. I don’t think that you can always just buy two [home] games every year. We want to intermingle in another game like that where we’re going out and challenging ourselves. The bottom line is if you go out and play well and show up, you can still recover from that type of a game against Alabama in a neutral site game.”
He’s not wrong. Had USC run the table in 2016 after the Alabama game, it would have made the playoffs. But the probable loss leaves no margin for error the rest of the way, which is unnecessary when Notre Dame is already on the docket.
In the spirit of Lopes’ own logic, playing Alabama is good for college football but not good for USC.
For anyone countering that the Trojans had no problem taking on anyone in the country under Pete Carroll -- after all, they had home and homes with Kansas State, Auburn, Arkansas, Nebraska and Ohio State, all of which were ranked in at least one of those meetings -- the circumstances were wildly different then. The schedule featured two byes, sometimes three -- and always one in September -- there was no conference title game, there were only eight conference games until 2006 (which coincides with the beginning of USC’s now 13-year drought of playing in a national title game), and, most importantly, the BCS system rewarded strength of schedule.
The CFP selection committee has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not. It’s all about win-loss record, especially for a team coming out of the Pac-12.
It’s not like the Trojans ever take an easy path anyway. They’ve played at least two true road games every September since 2013, and every year from 2002-10, and they likely will again in 2019. Next year’s schedule demonstrates some progress, but more so out of sheer luck.
Because of how the calendar falls, there are 15 weeks between Labor Day and the Pac-12 title game, meaning each team will have two bye weeks. USC’s second one has already been fixed for the week after it hosts UCLA in late November. The first one could fall anywhere between Weeks 4-12. The Trojans open with home games against Fresno State and Stanford before traveling to Utah to face BYU.
The Cougars also took on three P5 teams in true road games this September. But BYU’s schedule also features Utah State, Northern Illinois, UMass, New Mexico State and McNeese State, which is in the FCS.
USC doesn’t have that luxury. The only other FBS team to take on three P5 teams in their respective stadiums in the opening month of the season was Kent State. Each contest produced a nice payout for the Mid-American Conference doormat, while Illinois, Penn State and Ole Miss got their desired Ws.
“We want seven home games," Lopes assured. "If you look around the conferences, they play eight home games. Alabama wouldn’t be caught playing six home games for anything.”
Because it's willing to buy two more -- the lesson being spend some money on the front end to better position yourself for a bigger purse on the back end. For decades now, USC has proven to be among the most aggressive scheduling programs in college football.
A big step toward rejoining the upper echelon of winners requires being smarter.
***