Playoffs unlikely, but not impossible
They’re two of the greatest postgame interviews of all-time. Though they hold about equal places in sports lore for their respective amounts of humor, they represent completely opposite sentiments.
The first is with former NFL coach Jim E. Mora (not to be confused with his son and current UCLA coach Jim L. Mora) after a particularly disappointing regular season loss with the Indianapolis Colts.
“Playoffs?! Don’t talk about playoffs! You kidding me? Playoffs?! I just hope we can win a game!”
The second is from former Boston Celtics forward Kevin Garnett after the Celtics won the NBA title in 2008.
“Anything is possible. Anything is possible!”
I can’t decide which of these feelings I’m most aligning with after USC’s win against Arizona this weekend. I want to say it’s possible for USC to make the four-team playoff at the end of the year, but part of me thinks it’s ridiculous to even think about that at this point.
Garnett isn’t exactly right in his assertion on probability. Obviously, there are plenty of things in sports that literally are not possible given what we know about physical limitations to the human body. But it wouldn’t be a cliché if there wasn’t some truth to it, and the sports world reminds us just about every week that highly, highly unlikely things happen all the time.
For example, if USC is down by 28 with 30 seconds, it truly is impossible for the Trojans to hypothetically come back. There is simply not enough time to run down the field for a touchdown four times even if the special teams unit rattled off three successful onside kicks. But if USC was down 40 points at halftime, the Trojans hypothetically could score three touchdowns each of the next two quarters and win, and that kind of stuff has happened before.
So with two losses, six remaining games and 18 teams in the AP poll between the last playoff spot, is it still possible for USC to make the playoff? Let’s draw up the least ridiculous scenario in which the No. 22 Trojans finish the regular season as the fourth-ranked team in the country.
This scenario hinges on maybe the most unlikely of the following possibilities: USC finishing the season with just two losses. I don’t think that will happen, but the Trojans could beat all six of the remaining teams on their schedule.
If that did happen, it still wouldn’t guarantee a top-four finish, and the Trojans will have to root for a lot of the other ranked teams to lose. But these Top 25 teams hit each other enough times that a two-loss ’SC team could jump them in the rankings (I don’t even want to think about how ridiculous the scenario would have to be for a three-loss ’SC team to make it…).
The most important game this weekend for the Trojans — besides the Colorado game, of course — is the No. 5 Notre Dame vs. No. 2 Florida State game. As much as any longtime fan might hate it, we all must swallow our pride and root as hard as we can for the rival Fighting Irish to upset the defending national champions. Notre Dame could jump to the top spot in the nation with a win, and I can’t imagine the Irish being any lower than No. 2 going into the last game of the season if they remain undefeated.
That last game of the season, of course, is when Notre Dame comes to the Coliseum, and an upset for the Trojans in that game would be monumental. Beating a team like that would validate USC as one of the best teams in the nation, but Notre Dame has to be undefeated for that game to really matter.
No. 9 Oregon is the next team that USC really needs to go undefeated the rest of the way. The Ducks still need to get past No. 23 Stanford, but I think they will en route to winning the Pac-12 North and will finish near the Top 5. If USC can follow an upset win over Notre Dame with a victory against Oregon in the Pac-12 championship game, USC finishing in the Top 4 starts looking like a legitimate possibility.
The Trojans first have to get to the Pac-12 title game, and that involves someone beating Arizona State in conference play. Whether it be Stanford this weekend, No. 20 Utah on Nov. 1 or No. 16 Arizona on the final weekend, ASU needs a second conference loss.
Because the Sun Devils would have the head-to-head advantage in the Pac-12 South standings over the Trojans — we don’t have to talk about the Hail Mary anymore — if both teams finished with one loss, the Trojans need someone else to punch their ticket for a crucial date with Oregon in the Pac-12 final.
But winning your conference only guarantees you a spot in the playoff if you happen to play in the SEC. One day, I think a system of automatic qualifiers for each conference will replace arbitrary rankings to determine playoff seeding. But the uncertainty of the current system actually makes for a very exciting avenue for fans and sportswriters to speculate.
No. 1 Mississippi State goes undefeated. That gives No. 7 Alabama a second loss and No. 3 Ole Miss a loss. If No. 6 Auburn beats Ole Miss but loses to Alabama, and Mississippi State beats No. 10 Georgia in the SEC title game, that gives everyone but Mississippi State two loses in the SEC.
No. 4 Baylor goes undefeated. That gives everybody else in the Big 12 two losses if No. 15 Oklahoma State can beat No. 12 TCU.
Now someone between the ACC winner and the Big Ten winner has to miss out on the Final Four. And nobody else from those conferences gets in. If Florida State wins everything except the Notre Dame game, the Seminoles are the only team making noise out of the ACC. That should be enough for the playoff. The winner of Ohio State vs. Michigan State should win the Big Ten with only one loss. Even if Michigan State comes out of the Big Ten and the Spartans’ one loss is to the Pac-12 against Oregon, the strength-of-schedule argument won’t matter as much as the better record.
So a two-loss USC team’s hopes rest on another bitter enemy.
Boston College needs to upset Florida State and give the Seminoles a second loss.
Throw in that upset, and USC makes the top four with Mississippi State, Baylor and Michigan State.
Verdict? Highly unlikely. The polls would have to weigh USC’s meteoric second half rise — which, again, still has to actually happen, by the way — very highly because a two-loss SEC team and a one-loss Notre Dame team might still be ranked higher than a two-loss USC team, even if Notre Dame’s one loss was to USC.
But possible.
Luke Holthouse is a sophomore majoring in broadcast and digital journalism and policy, planning and development. His column, “Holthouse Party”, runs Wednesdays.