Bet the over on USC but beware

Is USC more likely to go 10-2 or 5-7?

The question was posed to me a couple weeks back and I didn't like either option. Both seem highly unlikely, which makes for a good question. Pressed to pick one, I went with the latter.

And yet, my immediate reaction to seeing BetOnline set USC's regular-season win total at 7 was, take the over. I think there's a great chance the Trojans do no worse than push. After all, I wouldn't be shocked if the Trojans won the Pac-12. I could also see them not being bowl eligible. This is all to say 2019 might be the toughest season to project in more than two decades. I've been following the program since the late 80s but didn't have a pulse on expectations until about 1995. Who could forget the Sports Illustrated cover with Keyshawn Johnson -- released almost 24 years to the day -- and its prediction that USC would win the national title?

I don't know if there's been a season during this period that seemed so unpredictable heading into the opener. Sure, there were years in which the team underachieved or fell well short of expectations. The 1996, 2000, 2012, 2015 and, of course, 2018 seasons come to mind. (The only recent instances of the Trojans markedly overachieving are 2002, 2011 and 2016.)

Perhaps the dialogue entering the 2009 and 2010 seasons are comparable to the past 12 months, where the most obvious parallel is at quarterback.

GET READY TO COMPETE

Pick your champion (you can change it later). We’ll email you when brackets open.

No purchase necessary. 50 U.S./D.C. 18+. Entry opens 3PM ET Dec 6, 2026 and closes 8PM ET Dec 18, 2026. Void where prohibited.See for complete details. The College Football Playoff (CFP) is not a sponsor or administrator of this contest.

USC opened 2009 ranked No. 4 in the nation, which seems silly in retrospect given all that was lost from the 2008 squad and Matt Barkley being a true freshman. But the Trojans had earned benefit of the doubt after seven consecutive top-four finishes. What followed, as I mentioned to former safety Taylor Mays this week in our podcast, was probably the worst-case scenario for that team. USC went 8-4 in the regular season, 9-4 overall. Even then, the win-total range was three at most.

It was a bit greater the following year in Lane Kiffin's first season. You didn't really know what that team was going to do. Kiffin wasn't established as a head coach (is he even now, nine years later?) but he secured a top-ranked recruiting class loaded with skill players. The cupboard was already pretty full on defense, while the offense featured a number of former prized recruits who had yet to have a significant role. It was sort of the inverse of this year's team. Also, the schedule was much harder after September, which is ultimately why the Trojans, ranked No. 14 at the beginning of the year, started out 4-0 and finished 8-5.

As you probably know, USC enters this season unranked in both major polls for the first time since 2001. That team, Pete Carroll's first, was also coming off a 5-7 campaign. It went 6-6.

While these are interesting analogies, they probably don't provide much insight into what will happen next. USC replaced or reassigned all nine of its position coaches and will feature at least 14 new starters against Fresno State on Saturday. Twelve of them are freshmen and sophomores, as are three of the returners. A few of them are already good. Most of them have the potential to be great.

In other words, anything can happen this fall. Whatever does won't be boring.

Add us as a preferred source on Google