It’s simple for USC right now: Win and get into the College Football Playoff.

But for the Trojans to win their next seven games of the regular season then the Pac-12 Championship, they must get better. Particularly since Notre Dame, Oregon, Washington and Utah are all ranked, with UCLA also receiving votes.

It does not sound so simple now.

But the Trojans (5-0, 3-0 Pac-12) have all the pieces to make a championship run, they just have to put them all together. First up, USC can no longer nearly squander a 27-point lead in the second half against an inferior opponent, as it did against Colorado (3-2, 0-2 Pac-12) this past weekend.

There are three major things the team needs to improve if it even wants to think about the CFP: tackle better, continue to dominate at home and play smarter offense.

Tackling

While aspects of the USC defense have improved from last season to this season, such as the pass rush, tackling has still been a problem for the Trojans, especially on the road.

Against Arizona State (1-4, 0-2 Pac-12) two weekends ago, one play in particular stood out. Sun Devil junior running back Cam Skattebo caught a pass out of the backfield on fourth down, which should have been stopped for a short gain to give USC the ball back. Instead, two different Trojans missed tackles, and Skattebo scampered into the end zone for a 52-yard score.

Just this past weekend, two crucial plays allowed Colorado to get back into the game. When USC had a 27-point lead midway through the third quarter, a USC defender missed a tackle on a curl route, which allowed the Colorado receiver to go for a 65-yard gain. That drive ended in a touchdown.

Later in the third quarter, Colorado set up a short screen pass and, again, a USC defender was in position to not only make the tackle, but get a tackle for loss. Instead, he missed the tackle, allowing the Buffaloes to score a touchdown and cut USC’s lead down to 21 points.

For all of the criticism Defensive Coordinator Alex Grinch has received in his time at USC, he had his players in position to make plays. All of these missed tackles were in open space. Unless Grinch is not coaching his players on how to tackle, which is extremely unlikely, it is on the players to make those tackles in the open space.

Tackling is the largest and most pertinent issue. If the Trojans address this problem, their road to the CFP is much easier.

Dominate at home, win on the road

In Head Coach Lincoln Riley’s tenure at USC, he has not lost at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. His average margin of victory at home with USC is 29.4 points. He only lost two home games in five seasons as the head coach at Oklahoma.

Riley just needs to keep leading the Trojans to those commanding home victories. Washington (5-0, 2-0 Pac-12) is USC’s highest-ranked opponent on the schedule, with the Huskies currently at No. 7 in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 poll.

With four more home games this year — two of them against ranked teams in Washington and Utah  (4-1, 1-1 Pac-12) — winning out in dominant fashion would greatly increase USC’s chances for the CFP.

However, on the road, USC just needs to win. A dominant win would certainly help a resume, but CFP voters understand that road wins in college football are much more difficult to earn than home wins. Even the tackling problems over the last two games can partly be chalked up to the Trojans having to play in hostile road environments.

Even though Washington is the highest-ranked team on the schedule for USC, Oregon (5-0, 2-0 Pac-12) might pose the toughest test for the Trojans with the game on the road.

But again, the Trojans just have to win that game. USC has fallen multiple spots in the polls after squeaking out wins on the road against Arizona State and Colorado, but if the Trojans beat the Ducks, USC will have to go up in the polls. The same goes for Notre Dame (5-1) next weekend. If USC wins that game, no matter the score, the Trojans will likely move up in the polls given the caliber and ranking of the No. 10 Fighting Irish.

Play smarter offense

USC has an electric offense under Riley and junior quarterback Caleb Williams, but it’s so electric that it disadvantages the Trojan defense.

Against Colorado, the longest drive for USC’s offense was 3:38. That is not the way to play football with the lead. After USC amassed a 27-point lead, running the ball to drain some of the clock would have been smart.

A team playing from behind generally plays hurry-up offense to preserve as much of the clock as it can, and a team with a lead generally tries to chew up as much time as it can when it has the ball. Colorado was playing from behind the entire second half, yet USC still spent less time than the Buffaloes on offense. In comparison, the Buffaloes had two drives in the second half alone that took more time off the clock than USC’s longest drive of the game.

The USC defense poses the largest liability for the Trojans, so the offense should try to keep its counterpart off the field as much as possible. While these quick second-half drives are problems with playcalling, like only having redshirt junior running back MarShawn Lloyd run the ball 13 times across the entire game, it is on the entire offense to have awareness on the field.

If the offense builds a large lead, it should consider running the ball much more to chew up the clock, especially since Lloyd has proven he can advance the ball by averaging 8.3 yards per carry.

All things considered, the Trojans are in a good spot. They have won all five games so far, but the most difficult tests are still to come. This year, USC likely has to win out to make the CFP as teams like Georgia (5-0, 2-0 SEC), Michigan (5-0, 2-0 Big Ten), Texas (5-0, 2-0 Big 12) and Florida State (4-0, 2-0 ACC), all currently ranked above USC, have a good shot at winning the rest of the games on their respective schedules.

The Trojans can prove they’re a top-four team in the country in the coming weeks and vault themselves over any team ahead of them. They just have to beat three teams currently ranked in the Top 10 to do so.