USC, the Once and Future But Maybe Not Present King of the Pac-12

Here's an actual college football headline from last week: "USC picked to win Pac-12 for the first time since 2012."

This garnered a fair bit of attention, mostly for the "win" part. The Trojans haven't won the conference since 2008, and since then have often cratered in the face of expectations—most notably in 2012, when USC was chosen not only as top team in the Pac-12, but also in America. They finished 7-6 and unranked. Lane Kiffin doesn't fail small.

As such, it's hard to blame anyone for being skeptical. USC is like a once-reputable car company that has begun manufacturing lemons. Seeing the school tabbed to win the Pac-12 and ranked in the top 10 in the preseason coaches' poll is bound to result in sticker shock.

Still, a majority of the media and coaches—or, more likely, those coaches' assistants— expect the Trojans to prevail. More to the point, they expect dominance: USC garnered 32 of the 45 votes to win the Pac-12 South, and more votes to win the conference overall (21) than second- and third-place vote getters Oregon and Arizona State combined (20).

After more than a half-decade of relative mediocrity, is the hype deserved?

Before we evaluate USC's on-field product, we need to account for—and perhaps separate—the school's off-field aura. History and reputation matter in college football, a sport driven by nostalgia and opinion polls, and the Trojans remain strong in both departments. Ten years ago, a star-studded, Pete Carroll-coached USC ruled the sport; today, the program still recruits better than anyone west of the Mississippi, and despite the rise of Oregon and Stanford stands as the only Pac-12 school to win a national championship since the turn of the century. Indeed, the Trojans have never enjoyed a consistent challenger within their conference, which may be one reason why Pac-12 rivals still speak of USC in deferential terms.

To wit: when ASU head coach Todd Graham tried to buttress the credentials of new quarterback Mike Bercovici's, he began his case by pointing out that the senior has win over USC under his belt. Asked about the redistribution of talent within the Pac-12, Utah's Kyle Whittingham deadpanned, "Instead of 85 five-star guys, [USC's] got 65." Another reporter asked UCLA's Jim Mora about whether the rest of the conference missed an opportunity to capitalize on the Trojans' vulnerability when USC was slapped with NCAA scholarship limitations. "USC's never down," Mora scoffed. "Come on, man. It's USC."

For Oregon coach Mark Helfrich, it's as simple as reminding everyone that "SC is SC," a "Manny Being Manny" sports cliche that neverthless captures a perceptual truth: whatever the Trojans once were, they still appear to be.

Given all that, pro-USC sentiment makes a certain kind of sense. Whether said sentiment is rooted in logic is another matter entirely. The case for the Trojans begins with quarterback Cody Kessler, who threw 39 touchdowns and just five interceptions last year. USC's offensive skill players–whom Helfrich praised as "unbelievable… all over the map"–are headlined by JuJu Smith-Schuster, a freshman All-American receiver who wasn't even the best pass-catcher on campus this spring; that honor goes to Steven Mitchell, a redshirt sophomore only now fully recovered from a torn knee ligament.

The Trojans' offensive line is also expected to be strong. On the other side of the ball, linebacker Su'a Cravens is one of the half-dozen or so best defenders in the country. Adoree' Jackson will someday earn NFL money at cornerback but possesses Charles Woodson-like potential as a combination receiving/returning threat, making him the rarest kind of Heisman-caliber two-way talent. According to Rivals.com, USC recruited the best group of defensive front seven prospects in the country.

If everything meshes, the Trojans have a high ceiling. That said, it's even easier to envision another season of underachievement. Kessler's gaudy touchdown-to-interception ratio dipped dramatically against better opponents. With Buck Allen and Nelson Agholor off to the NFL, he enters the season as the closest thing USC has to an offensive star–a burden that crushed one his recent predecessors, John David Booty. Both safety positions are up for grabs and it's anyone's guess how dependable the eventual starters will be. Most concerning of all, a defense that last season labored to get to opposing quarterbacks in lost its best player (Leonard Williams) and leading sack-producer (JR Tavai) to the NFL Draft, leaving Cravens as the only returning player in the same zip code of being considered a proven pass rusher.

More aggressive play-calling could do wonders, but Justin Wilcox and Sarkisian–who calls the offense–frustrated USC fans last season far more than any of the team's players, making the Trojans look teeth-chatteringly tentative late in games. Sarkisian has since said all the right things, going out of his way at media day to shoulder blame and declaring that the coaching staff has learned from its failures. But recognition and implementation are two different things; no one knows for certain whether Sarkisian, entering his seventh season as a college head coach, is capable of translating the former into the latter.

Then there's the rest of the Pac-12. Oregon lost Marcus Mariota, but Ducks are the most efficient producer of quality backfield talent in the sport. UCLA returns 18 starters and impact talent everywhere except quarterback, where presumptive starter and early enrollee freshman Josh Rosen is quite possibly the best prospect to come out of Southern California since Carson Palmer. Arizona State lost minotaur-turned-wide receiver Jaelen Strong but returns the conference's most versatile offensive weapon in DJ Foster, plus a starless-but-balanced defense. Stanford's beefy brand of football trips up flash-and-dash teams every year, and it may not be a coincidence that Utah finally enjoyed Pac-12 success last year by handing the ball to Devontae Booker and impersonating the Cardinal. Nor should anyone overlook RichRod: for the first time in eons, the Arizona coach returns a starting quarterback who perfectly suits his system; would anyone be surprised if sophomore Anu Solomon becomes the best quarterback in the conference and elevates the Wildcats to the top of the Pac-12 South?

None of these teams are demonstrably better than USC, but at least for now, none seem demonstrably worse. Nevertheless, the Trojans have been tabbed as the team to beat. If they retake the Pac-12, no one will say they didn't see it coming: between history and recent recruiting successes, it's the easiest case to make. Is it the right one? It could be that too many people are looking past a very unsettled present to imagine a glorious future, not so much analyzing what is than projecting what they believe should be. Recruiting rankings are nice, but also can be as predictive as dice. Headlines can be wrong. Just because something seems inevitable doesn't make it imminent.