USC Football: 5 Reasons Trojans beat Buckeyes in Cotton Bowl

USC football takes on Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. Will the Buckeyes show up or will the Trojans send them packing? Here’s why the latter is most likely.

More: Complete 2017-2018 bowl schedule

Both USC and Ohio State entered the season with national championship aspirations. Both schools won their respective conference championship games but fell just short of the College Football Playoff. Instead, Alabama helped the SEC become the first conference to ever send multiple representatives to the Playoff.

USC finished the season 11-2 with two road losses, both to ranked teams. Ohio State fell to Lincoln Riley and Oklahoma in the second week of the season as well as dropping an ugly contest to Iowa midway through the year.

Rather than sit around on New Year’s Day and watch Clemson, Oklahoma, Georgia and Alabama square off they’ll be playing each other in a bowl game of their own. The Cotton Bowl might be the best non-Playoff bowl game of the year, at least that’s what it looks like on paper.

This might seem like two equally matched teams, but USC has all they need to beat Ohio State. Here are five reasons a Trojan victory over the Buckeyes is not only possible, but likely to happen.