USC Predicted to Top Pac-12 Conference Ahead of Media Day

USC will play its final season in the Pac-12 before departing for the Big Ten.

USC first won what is now the Pac-12 in 1927 when they shared a Pacific Coast Conference title with Stanford and Idaho.

Thankfully, college football has become much more organized since, and conferences only have one winner. In the Pac, it was often USC.

USC leads the conference by a wide margin with 39 unofficial Pac-10 or Pac-12 championships, not including USC's vacated 2004 and 2005 Pac-10 titles. Washington and UCLA are tied for the second-most titles with 17 apiece.

Now, USC (and UCLA) are set to leave the Pac-12 after one final ride on the West Coast. A poll by members of the Pac-12 media has USC winning the conference by a wide margin of votes. USC has 25 first-place votes, while the reigning champion Utah has six. Washington, who finished second in the poll, has four first-place votes.

USC last won their conference in 2017, when Sam Darnold was donning the cardinal and gold. Oh boy, has a lot happened since.

The Trojans had a chance to win the Pac-12 last season, reaching the conference championship, but fell for the second time in two months to Utah. Caleb Williams, the reigning Heisman winner, popped his hamstring late in the season and was not able to perform to his high standards.

With Williams coming back for his second season in LA, a talented wide receiver room, a strong offensive line, and a defense that surely cannot be worse than last year's, the Trojans are in the best position to win the Pac-12 and reach their first-ever College Football Playoff since the end of the BCS era.

Their path holds no shortage of challenges, with games against Washington, Oregon, and Utah — who all return their talented starting quarterbacks from last season — on the docket late in the season.

The Trojans' journey to the CFP begins Aug. 26 at home against the San Jose State Spartans.