College Football Playoff rankings: USC Trojans have clear path to playoffs

The latest AP Top 25 poll has dropped, and the biggest winner is USC when it comes to its impact on the College Football Playoff rankings. 

It’s almost December, which means more than ever before this season College Football games mean something. The margin for error is so insanely slim and the number of ways a team can pay itself out of the College Football Playoffs is plentiful.

Walking the tightrope near the top of the mountain, and in the midst of an incredible season, are the USC Trojans. Lincoln Riley’s first season in SoCal has exceeded expectations, even with those expectations already being sky-high.

The hope was that Riley would begin to turn the tide for the Trojans and lay the groundwork to put them back on the map. No one was expecting this season to be one of rebuilding — or go the way things have in Norman after Riley left — but fans are pinching themselves over just how well it has gone.

Through almost three months of the season, USC is in a prime position to stake its claim in the College Football Playoff rankings as the year winds down.

USC is perfectly positioned in College Football Playoff rankings after Week 12

There’s still a lot that needs to happen, and resident FanSided USC fan Alicia de Artola Castillo will urge caution, but the Trojans have a clear path to the College Football Playoffs.

Here’s how things stacked up heading into the weekend and what ended up happening with the teams in the latest College Football Playoff rankings:

College Football Rankings before Week 12

1. Georgia Bulldogs (WON, meh)
2. Ohio State Buckeyes (WON, barely)
3. Michigan Wolverines (WON, barely)
4. TCU Horned Frogs (Won, spectacularly)
5. Tennessee Volunteers (LOST, badly)
6. LSU Tigers (WON, but it was UAB)
7. USC Trojans (WON, in a close one)

USC needs some help, but it’s not going to be particularly hard to find. Tennessee getting absolutely blasted into the core of the sun by South Carolina effectively ends their National Championship dreams. There was some hope left, despite the quality loss to Georgia, but the dream is dead after Spencer Rattler single-handily destroyed the Volunteers.

That leaves one notable obstacle standing between USC and the College Football Playoffs: LSU.

This is where things get tricky and interesting, however, because the same path that could be cleared by LSU also applies to Ohio State and Michigan.

USC is circling the SEC Championship Game, where LSU will run right into the Bulldogs buzzsaw in Georgia. Unless Brian Kelly pulls off a true miracle, the Tigers will be a two-loss team and it’s then up to the committee to determine how quality those losses were. The Trojans could catch a huge break if Jimbo Fisher enters the chat next Saturday and coaches Texas A&M to an upset win — one that the program might be motivated to pull off based on how desperately it needs a bounce back.

There’s also the Big Team element to watch.

Ohio State and Michigan meet next week in The Big House, which could open a path for USC to crack the Top 4. Once again this comes down to how much the playoff committee believes the loss will be a quality one, but it’s impossible to see whoever loses that game remain in the Top 4 in either the College Football Playoff Ranking or the AP Top 25 poll.

Beyond that, whoever wins that Ohio State-Michigan showdown will need to win the Big Ten Championship Game in order to remain in good graces, although a reality where zero teams from the Big Ten make the playoff seems hard to believe.

TCU remains a wild card in all of this. Hypnotoad has voters in a trance, and rightfully so. But as we saw this past Saturday, the Horned Frogs are mortal and capable of both being in a position to get upset and also gamble big and risk their whole season.

USC Trojans College Football Playoff scenarios

Essentially, this is what USC fans need to root for in order to watch the Trojans make the College Football Playoff:

• LSU loses to Texas A&M and Georgia
• LSU loses to Georgia and the committee holds it against them
• TCU loses to Iowa State next week
• LSU and TCU each lose one or both of their next two games
• Whoever wins Ohio State-Michigan loses in the Big Ten Championship Game

Of course, USC needs to beat a resurgent Notre Dame team next week and then win the Pac-12 title game to make any of these acrobatics worth anything. But the path is clear for the Trojans to make the playoff and the end of this season will no doubt be a white-knuckle thrill ride.