09-06-2016, 12:40 PM
USC didn't just lose horribly, they were completely outclassed. The post I did looking at ypp differentials showed them as having essentially been an FCS team on the receiving end of a beat-down by a top-10 team, that's how bad it was. It makes some sense that computer systems don't react to strongly to the first game because it was just one game, but that beatdown was so thorough that it's definitely a weird result. USC did nothing to justify being ranked in that game, unless you count "looked pretty good in the first quarter before completely imploding" as a positive result.