USC is No. 1 in this significant college football bowl game stat

We are 80 days from USC football's first game of the 2024 season. September 1st also marks the Trojans' first kickoff as a member of the Big Ten conference. Despite leaving the Pac-12, USC remains eligible to play in the Rose Bowl Game if its regular-season record supports such a possibility.

A 2025 Rose Bowl appearance would be phenomenal for Lincoln Riley and company. Historically, USC football has experienced its best results on the storied field in Pasadena.

USC football has the most wins in a major college bowl game.

Among the New Year's Six bowl games, no college program has more wins than USC's 25 Rose Bowl wins. The Oklahoma Sooners are a distant second with their 12 Orange Bowl wins, followed by the Texas Longhorns' 11 Cotton Bowl wins.

The Trojans' 25 wins in the Rose Bowl are a significant chunk of the program's 35 bowl game wins all-time. USC technically has 36 bowl game wins, but the NCAA wiped the 2005 Orange Bowl from the record books following the Reggie Bush scandal. Bush was recently reinstated as the 2005 Heisman Trophy winner.

Hope remains that the NCAA will eventually reinstate USC as 2004 national champions.

How USC can get back to the Rose Bowl

The Trojans have not appeared in the Rose Bowl since their 52-49 win over Penn State in 2017. What's worse, seven of their last ten bowl appearances were in non-NY6 bowl games. Indeed, I have little interest in watching USC compete in the Holiday Bowl.

USC must do what it takes to return to the best college football bowl game this January.

The 2025 Rose Bowl will be a quarterfinal game in the recently expanded College Football Playoff (CFP). It will be the 111th rendition of "The Granddaddy of Them All," but void of its usual Big Ten vs. Pac-12 matchup. Because of the CFP, the Rose Bowl will feature one of the top four remaining teams following the first round.

The CFP Committee will regionally align the top four remaining teams with their quarterfinal bowl game. Thus, if USC is among the top four quarterfinal teams, there is a good chance they will appear in the 2025 Rose Bowl. The Trojans can also return to Pasadena if they are among the bottom four teams.

In that scenario, USC would be seeded against the top-four team selected as the Rose Bowl's home team. Ultimately, winning the Big Ten is the best path for USC to a postseason that runs through Pasadena.

The new CFP format awards a first-round bye to the CFP's top-four ranked teams. It is assumed the Big Ten champion will earn a top-four seed.