U.SOnlineNews: The transitive property of wins and losses never holds true in college football - especially in the case of a rivalry game like Notre Dame-USC. That doesn’t taken into account USC’s recent dominance of the series either and despite their lack of a top 25 ranking this year, the Trojans are still a very solid football team with playmakers on both sides of the ball.
USC’s record might not be what most Trojan fans became accustomed to under Pete Carroll, but USC has played some very good football teams tough. They took Stanford down to the wire and hung with Oregon for about three quarters until their lack of depth caught up to them and the Ducks ran away with it.
At the same time, USC was hanging by a thread for a couple of weeks before getting blown out by Oregon State last weekend. Three weeks ago they squeaked by Arizona State and two weeks ago hung on to a three point win over Arizona.
The X-factor here is what USC team shows up? The one that played Stanford and Oregon tough or the one that got blown out by Oregon State and doesn’t have a chance to play in a bowl game because of USC’s probation? The lack of a bowl game can work for or against the Irish here. On one hand, they could treat the Notre Dame game as their bowl game while on the other they could be lacking motivation after last week.
Read More: IBG - Southern Cal Edition
