Did USC Join The Wrong Conference?

The USC Trojans had a disappointing 2024 season, finishing the regular season 6-6 with a 4-5 record in the Big Ten Conference. They blew four games with win expectancy over 92%, a historic achievement in futility that may never be repeated. 

The list of mistakes and failures from the 2024 USC football team is almost endless. But on Friday night, USC had a ferocious comeback win over the Texas A&M Aggies in the Las Vegas Bowl, at one point scoring 21 straight points after being down 24-7. Even after surrendering a late 4th quarter touchdown, the Trojans fought back, finishing off an impressive two-minute drill with a seven-yard touchdown pass to secure the 35-31 win.

Despite three turnovers, missing most of their starting offensive line and a number of other key players to the transfer portal, a missed field goal, and having their Ray Guy award-winning punter go down with an injury, USC ended their season on a high note. And improved to 2-0 this season against the SEC, with wins over LSU and Texas A&M. That’s exactly the number of wins that Oklahoma had in the SEC. 

Did the USC administration push the program into the wrong conference after leaving the Pac-12?

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – JULY 24: USC Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley speaks during the 2024 Big Ten Media Days on July 24, 2024 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, IN. (Photo by James Black/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

USC Hands SEC Another Actual, Non-Hypothetical Loss

The past few weeks have been dominated by SEC fans telling the rest of the country that every school would have gone 0-8 in SEC play, even if they were, say, 11-1 in the regular season. Yet the SEC, despite being undefeated in hypothetical games, somehow continues to lose them when played on the actual football field.

For example, we were told that Alabama would have dominated in the college football playoff because Indiana didn’t beat any good teams. Then Oklahoma, a team that dominated Alabama in a 24-3 blowout, lost to Navy on Friday to finish their season 6-7.

Then later in the day, Texas A&M, a team that started 5-0 in the SEC, lost to a mediocre USC team. Just like LSU lost to USC earlier in the season. So weird how the SEC keeps losing games to teams that they beat every time the conference’s fans engage in hypothetical online discussions!

But the result for USC raises an important point: is the Trojans roster and coaching philosophy a better fit for the SEC over the Big Ten?

It’s hard to say for sure, but the modern SEC, despite its reputation, is mostly an offensive league filled with explosive athletes. Yes, Texas had an outstanding defense in 2024, and Georgia historically has had dominant defenses. But SEC teams averaged over 30 points per game in 2024, while Big Ten teams averaged 26. That’s a big gap, and it shows that the modern SEC might have fit USC’s style better than the defensive-minded Big Ten. 

Too late now. 

Trojans fans might not have had much to cheer about this year, but at the very least they went 2-0 against a conference filled with the 16 best teams in the history of college sports. Teams that would absolutely never lose to teams they frequently lose to.