USC Had a Rough Start, But They're One of the Best Teams in College Football

The first two or three weeks of the college football season often set the tone on which teams we pay attention to the rest of the year. And after the first few weeks of 2016, it was clear that the University of Southern California would not be one of those teams.

The Trojans started the season by getting blown out by Alabama, 52-6, and lost their first two conference games to Stanford and Utah, thanks to a litany of mistakes. Just four games into the season, USC stood at 1-3 and already faced an enormous uphill battle to even factor in in its own division.

But as the rest of the country wrote off the Trojans, they've spent the past two months actually becoming…good? That's right, USC is actually a good team, and not in the "relative to a 1-3 start" kind of way but in the "actually, probably one of the top five teams in college football" kind of way. The Trojans are currently in the midst of a six-game winning streak, which includes a win over Colorado and culminated with a convincing 26-13 victory at Washington.

It shouldn't be much of a shock that USC is good. The Trojans have had some down seasons after Pete Carroll left, but they have dominated West Coast recruiting in recent years and have as much talent as anyone in the Pac-12. That talent was on full display against Washington. Adoree' Jackson, the do-everything cornerback and return man, had two interceptions. He was a five-star recruit and ranked seventh in the nation coming out of high school. Redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Darnold, who is finally coming into his own, was a four-star. Star wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster was a five-star, too.

In other words, we should have seen this coming, even given the Trojans' recent history.

The Trojans' fiery comeback, which will in all likelihood improve to an eight-game winning streak, with UCLA and Notre Dame left on the schedule, can serve as a building block for next year, and a validation of new coach Clay Helton, whose hire was much maligned this past off-season. The Pac-12 is in a bit of a reshuffling right now, with Stanford and Oregon returning to mediocrity and many of the good teams in the conference winning despite a talent deficiency. Washington is built to be good for years to come, but the Huskies are still beatable.

USC has had a knack for underachieving in recent years, but this season the Trojans have the potential to shed that label and make a New Year's Six bowl. Perhaps more important, they return enough players to make some serious noise for the Playoff in 2017. Don't sleep on the Trojans because of a bad first month. The past six weeks prove that this is one of the top handful of teams in college football.