No home, new conference, no problem.

USC women’s soccer (7-1-1, 3-0 Big Ten) has yet to play a home game this season, but constant travel has not slowed the team down. The Trojans have won all three conference games, yet to allow a goal in Big Ten play.

While the subjective rankings do not show it, the United Soccer Coaches rankings and the D1 Committee’s Top 16, USC’s Ratings Percentage Index — a mathematical formula that considers various factors — puts the squad at No. 9 in the country.

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All three of USC’s conference games have come against teams outside of the top 50 in RPI, meaning the toughest is yet to come, but the Trojans have set themselves up for success in their first season in the Big Ten.

USC had a similarly impressive start in 2023, winning its first five conference games, but the Trojans’ record sat at 5-2-1 by Sept. 23, 2023, while they have played to 7-1-1 to start this year, all games on the road.

Head Coach Jane Alukonis and her squad will have to match up against five teams in the top 50 of the RPI, but all of those games will come at home, a place where USC has shown dominance, either at Dignity Sports Health Park or at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. In 2023, the Trojans put up a 7-1-2 record at home with a meager 4-4-1 mark on the road.

So far this season, USC has seemed to shake its road woes on the backs of multiple newcomers as it begins to prepare for an challenging upcoming home slate.

Graduate goalkeeper Laurence Gladu, a transfer from the University of Pennsylvania, has now put up five clean sheets. The Trojans had 10 clean sheets all of last year, with six of them coming after the start of October.

USC brought in many strong additions this summer, as five of the starting 10 field players in the Trojans’ most recent win against Indiana (5-3-1, 0-3) were either freshmen or transfers new to the team this year.

These newcomers’ efforts have shown up in the stat sheet, with three of USC’s top-five goal scorers being new to the team this year.

A strong newcomer core, along with the recent return of two star players from national team stints, means the Trojans could become even better in the coming weeks.

Sophomore forward Maribel Flores returned to the squad for the Indiana game after playing with Team Mexico for the U-20 Women’s World Cup, while sophomore forward Florianne Jourde competed for the Canadian national team in the same event over the past few weeks.

That duo of sophomores gives Alukonis two more formidable offensive weapons for a squad that has looked very strong defensively so far this season. Flores was tied for the team lead with six goals in 2023, and Jourde tallied two goals with a pair of assists to her name. The Trojans did not lose either of Flores’ top-scoring counterparts, bringing back senior forward Kayla Colbert and senior midfielder Helena Sampaio to this year’s edition of the team.

The Trojans have already shown some dominance in non-conference play and the early goings of Big Ten competition and only seem to be getting stronger. While it is important to not overreact to early-season contests — the United Soccer Coaches poll certainly did not when it ranked USC at No. 24 this week — USC has looked the part in its first season in a new conference.

Alukonis’ team will look to keep rolling into its home schedule, taking on Minnesota (8-1-1, 2-1) at Dignity Health Sports Park for the B1G Premiere at 6 p.m. Thursday.

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.