Early in the week, the USC Trojans opened as a -6.5 point favorite against the Nebraska Cornhuskers on many betting lines as the teams began their weekly preparations for the Blackout tilt in Lincoln tonight.
The Trojans are generally seen as deeper and more talented than the Cornhuskers and, if anything, the public opinion seemed to be that the spread was a little low. Then a funny thing happened over the next few days.
It dropped to -4.5.
It didn’t take a deep dive figure out what the likely reason was. The Trojans and road games in the Midwest just don’t seem to mix thus far. At all.
Multiple articles were done prior to this season trying to find if there was a pattern showing the Big 10’s new west coast schools were playing at a bit of a disadvantage with what some considered excessive travel miles despite the conference’s attempt to even things out.
In truth, it would probably take more years and studies for a large enough sample, but it became clear pretty quickly the Trojans weren’t hitting the ground running in those games. Former USC quarterback, Miller Moss, now at Louisville, made it pretty clear it wasn’t fun for him as he stated, “Just being completely candid, if you fly back that long and you lose the game, you’re sitting on that flight for five hours coming back,” Moss said. “For lack of a better word, that sucks.”
Now , granted, he was talking about post-game, but take a look at Southern Cal’s road woes since joining their new conference:
- 2024 @ Michigan – 24-27
- 2024 @ Minnesota – 17-24
- 2024 @ Maryland – 28-29
- 2025 @ Purdue 33-17 (surrendered 305 passing yards, currently 2-6)
- 2025 @ Illinois 32-34 (Illinois lost 63-10 the previous week to Indiana)
- 2025 @ Notre Dame 24-34
So, in six road games to the region in two seasons, they are currently 1-5 and were favored in 5 of the 6 games.
And the Huskers have never beaten the Trojans and we all know the drought against ranked teams; USC is #23.
Therefore I figured I’d throw that out there since something has to give tonight, right?
What will it be?
