The outcome of the Pac-12 Championship game on Friday night didn’t matter. It had already been decided. U.S.C. is back.
It seems pretty blatant, but it’s still true, especially after the Trojans’ heart-breaking, soul-crushing, life-draining 47-24 loss to Utah, which ended their prospects of making the College Football Playoff.
Nobody could have predicted that USC would be competing for a postseason position in its conference championship game. You don’t have to go back too far to find a team that played without discipline and couldn’t even muster a bowl-eligible season.
We all watched the Trojans a little over a year ago and pondered when the misery would end.
USC is currently 11-2 and will play in a New Year’s Six bowl game. The squad is back in the mix with some of the enduring powerhouses of college football after making an incredible leap.
The achievement wasn’t without its share of near misses. Oregon State almost brought the season to an end in Corvalis. The Neilon Nudge then occurred. UCLA nearly put a stop to the dream in Pasadena. The Victory Bell was then reclaimed by Korey Foreman, who then made the play of the season.
Even when things appeared bleak, USC just kept on pulling the rabbit out of the hat. The glamour of Friday night in Las Vegas abruptly vanished.
“To not get it done is clearly a tough pill to take,” Riley said. “You come as far as this team has come, this programme has come in the last 12 months, you get that close to winning a championship and perhaps much more.”
The defeat was a damning indictment of a group that, in the end, couldn’t last. Utah was able to gallop for 223 yards and score 47 points because the defence crumbled. Due to the injury to sophomore quarterback Caleb Williams, Utah only needed to go on a 44-7 scoring run to win the game.
I’ll say it again: the defeat was crushing. There is no avoiding it. I am aware that it doesn’t look good to be praising a squad that was thoroughly outplayed in the most important game of the season.
But this needs to be seen in its proper context. Even after an undoubtedly repulsive performance, this is not the time to scrunch our faces up and walk away in disgust. Riley said as much:
The progress that has been accomplished in the past year is evidently represented by a much larger picture and outlook, according to Riley. So we won’t be moving around like this is some sort of funeral.
I beg USC supporters to heed this advice. This season has to be recognised for the unprecedented overachievement that it is.
To get to this point, we’ve made a lot of wonderful progress, Riley added. “We anticipated victory tonight. We failed to complete it. However, the course and trajectory of this initiative remain unchanged.
Things for this programme are improving more than ever. Imagine how many guys will want to come play for a revived team in sunny Southern California. Riley and USC hammered the gateway hard last offseason.
Williams winning the Heisman for one more year won’t hurt either. He makes the extraordinary appear normal, and he now has quite the ego to carry over into the following season. He would have long since left for the NFL draught if he hadn’t been obliged to stay another season. Williams has great talent, but his leadership attitude is unmatched.
Williams, who missed a significant portion of the game due to a hamstring injury, remarked that Kobe “always emphasised the game is bigger than what you’re experiencing.” “I was motivating myself in my brain,”
Why would you wager against him after hearing that?
His team still has a chance to finish with 12 victories for the first time since the 2008 season, and a bowl game is just around the corner.
Whatever the outcome of the season, USC now needs to walk the walk. The fans would have been happy with such a season in Riley’s third season, but the timeframe has been sped up to warp speed. Now, they’ll be held to higher standards. The Trojans will have to accomplish an increasingly challenging assignment.
I’ll now make my shot. In 364 days, USC will be back in the Pac-12 Championship Game. The entire country might then realise what I already know: USC is back.
