The path to the College Football Playoff has already lightened for USC football.

No. 11 USC (2-0) already has a top-15 win under its belt — taking down then-No. 13 LSU (1-1) in Las Vegas — and it recorded its first shutout since 2011 this past weekend, putting up a 48-point victory over Utah State (1-1). But it’s how the Trojans’ future opponents have fared that stokes optimism among USC fans.

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Starting with the Trojans’ next opponent, the national championship hangover is clearly present for No. 17 Michigan (1-1), who fell 31-12 to No. 2 Texas (2-0) at home. Losing to the country’s second-best team does not necessarily indicate that the Wolverines are a bad team, until you look at how they lost.

Michigan only scored a pair of field goals across the first 58 minutes of the game. Its new starting quarterback, senior Davis Warren, tossed two interceptions and only mustered 204 passing yards. The Wolverines had won 16 straight games before falling to Texas, and with Sherrone Moore now the head coach, the tables might be turning on Michigan.

The Wolverines are still a top team in the country, but after their showing against Texas, a seemingly unwinnable matchup between USC and Michigan at the Big House on Sept. 21 seems a little less daunting. 

It is certainly helpful for the Trojans that they’re facing the Wolverines earlier in the season. The weather will be warmer, and it might be before Warren and Moore figure out their troubles.

Onto Penn State (2-0), another USC opponent who did not impress this past weekend.

Although the No. 8 Nittany Lions did win, they were trailing at halftime against a Bowling Green squad (1-1) that is 5-25 all-time against teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll and only won by seven points. That puzzling performance, along with the fact Penn State is 3-17 against top-10 opponents under Head Coach James Franklin, may imply that the Nittany Lions are at risk of defeat.

While the Trojans are not ranked in the top 10 — currently sitting at No. 11 —  it might make it into the upper echelon of the rankings by the Oct. 12 matchup with the Nittany Lions at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum if USC can handle business at Michigan.

The most embarrassing performance of the week belongs to Notre Dame (1-1), though. After beating then-No. 20 Texas A&M (1-1) on the road, the then-No. 5 Fighting Irish came home and put up a stinker against No. 25 Northern Illinois (2-0) — a team Notre Dame paid $1.4 million to play and the team’s first-ever win over a top-five opponent.

Similar to Michigan, No. 18 Notre Dame is still a formidable matchup, but the Fighting Irish’s loss to a team in the Mid-American Conference suggests they were never a top-10 team, let alone a top-five team.

The lone opponent who will prove to be stiffer competition than previously thought is No. 23 Nebraska (2-0), a team traveling to the Coliseum on Nov. 16. The Cornhuskers have been reignited by freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola, a five-star signal caller who Trojan Head Coach Lincoln Riley tried to recruit.

Nebraska does not yet have a marquee win, beating the University of Texas at El Paso (0-2) and the University of Colorado Boulder (1-1), but Raiola has been strong with 423 passing yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. The Head Coach Deion Sanders-led Buffaloes are not the toughest of opponents, but an 18-point win for Nebraska got the Cornhuskers into the AP Top 25 for a reason.

With a ranked win already under their belt, the Trojans have a chance at four more against the above teams. If USC is able to come up with a win in all four — with the only road game happening at Michigan — or even in three of them, the Trojans could be set up for a CFP berth, barring any major upsets.

A trip to the 12-team Playoff seemed well out of the question at the beginning of the season, and while it is certainly not guaranteed, the Trojans just might have the schedule to make it to the promised land in their first season in the Big Ten.

Thomas Johnson is a senior writing about USC’s arrival to a new conference and all of the implications surrounding the entrance in his column, “Big Ten Bites,” which runs every other Wednesday.