Utes crushing Trojans adds twist to playoff picture
LAS VEGAS — As the evening began, Southern California quarterback Caleb Williams danced away from Utah defenders and delivered darts all over the field, threatening to turn next week’s Heisman Trophy ceremony into a coronation and the rest of Friday night’s Pac-12 Conference championship game into a parade toward the playoff.
Hours later, Williams hobbled off the field with his stomach surely as knotted up as one of his hamstrings, gnawing on one towel and draping another over his head as he limped to the locker room.
The story of the Trojans’ resurrection as a national title contender runs through Williams, their transfer quarterback whose swagger is as big as his endorsement portfolio, and whose play has delivered at every turn.
It was no different Friday night, when a 47-24 thumping by Utah in front of a rollicking sellout crowd left Williams and USC pained in so many ways.
Just as a two-touchdown lead evaporated in the desert air, so did the fourth-ranked Trojans’ hopes of reaching the College Football Playoff for the first time. Their defeat opened a backdoor for two teams that did not qualify for their conference title game and did not have to play this weekend, Ohio State and Alabama.
Perhaps also gone is Williams’ chance of winning the Heisman Trophy. His fingernails, which had an expletive spelled out on one hand and UT-A-H painted on the other, are also due for a manicure.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow,” said USC’s first-year coach, Lincoln Riley, whom Williams had followed from Oklahoma.
“When you get to the top like this and these games have so much riding on them, it takes so much to get here — especially where we started from.”
The Trojans are in so many ways emblematic of the modern college football power, with the transfer portal acting as an accelerant for rebuilding under a new coach with offensive bona fides. That the program, which sank to 4-8 last season, has regained its shine now is particularly opportune. USC is headed to the Big Ten after next season to take advantage of a richer television deal.
Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff was more than happy to have USC represent his conference on its way out the door — a sign of how desperate the Pac-12, which hasn’t been in the playoff since the 2016 season, is to make its case for national relevance in the midst of its own television negotiations.
That so much of the discussion this past week had centered around USC’s title contention — despite the Trojans losing in Salt Lake City in October — suited the Utes fine.
“We had a team meeting and took a vote whether we should even show up for kickoff because they were already going to the playoffs,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said late Friday.