One of these 5 teams will win Pac-12 football title in 2023

1. USC

Adding Lincoln Riley as the head coach made the USC Trojans instant Pac-12 football title contenders last season and if Caleb Williams was healthy for the Pac-12 championship game, things could have gone differently.

That’s nothing against Utah, which beat USC twice, but Williams wasn’t the same player after getting hurt in that game.

The Heisman Trophy winner will be aiming to be the best player in college football once again, however, the defense and play in the trenches will decide if the Trojans win a conference championship in 2023.

Riley certainly did his part to address those issues in the transfer portal. Bear Alexander from Georgia was a key addition and one of the top transfers on the market. Anthony Lucas from Texas A&M was another, plus Emmanuel Pregnon, an elite O-line transfer from Wyoming that just about every college football program in the country wanted.

Zachariah Branch and Duce Robinson are elite freshmen at wide receiver, and tight end respectively, plus Dorian Singer came from Arizona to help fill the void left by Jordan Addison, as well as landing former South Carolina back MarShawn Lloyd, who averaged 5.2 yards per carry and rushed for 573 yards in nine games for the Gamecocks in 2022, not to mention former five-star running back Raleek Brown.

All the pieces are there for USC to win the Pac-12 football championship. The Trojans even get Utat at home in the regular season. Washington also has to take a trip to the Coliseum.

A trip to Oregon looms on the schedule for USC, but this team should be a playoff contender once again this season. Anything short of that will be a disappointment.