USC trying to get back to what it used to be

ARLINGTON, Texas — When quarterback Caleb Williams followed coach Lincoln Riley from Oklahoma to Southern California, they had the same goal.

“We wanted to get USC back to where it was, what all of you might remember USC as,” Williams said.

The Trojans came up just short of making the four-team College Football Playoff in their first season on the West Coast, but Williams won the Heisman Trophy and they have a chance to reach 12 wins for the first time since 2008. They play American Athletic Conference champion Tulane on Monday at the Cotton Bowl in a matchup of 11-2 teams that both made record improvements.

“It’s just a steppingstone to where we want to be and where we’re trying to go, and where we will be,” Williams said.

Riley said this season has been as “fun a season as I’ve had coaching in a long time.”

“This has been a different challenge and we knew it would be coming here,” he said. “And I think the ability for a team to rally and come together certainly in the way that we have, and to be able to experience some of the success, has been great.”

USC, which was 4-8 last season before they arrived, has already matched the program’s biggest season-to-season improvement. The Trojans’ first AP national championship was an 11-0 run in 1962 that followed a 4-5-1 record the previous year.

That is still not as impressive as Tulane’s turnaround. The Green Wave have already matched the FBS record after going 2-10 last year, and can make it an unprecedented 10-win improvement in their most significant bowl since the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day 1940.

Tulane, in a New Year’s Six game as the highest-ranked Group of Five team, won 17-10 at Big 12 champion Kansas State in mid-September in its only game so far this season against a Power Five team.

Southern Cal lost to only one team this season, to Utah twice — in mid-October and again in the Pac-12 title game after they had moved to fourth in the CFP rankings. Williams still threw for 363 yards and three touchdowns after injuring his hamstring on a 59-yard run early in the title game, and said he is ready to play in the Cotton Bowl.

“I feel good. I feel like I’m where I need to be,” said Williams, who has thrown for 4,075 yards and 37 touchdowns with four interceptions, and run for 10 more scores. “I feel good, ready to play, itching to play.”