USC season preview: Trojans host Oregon for first time in a long time

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USC football has a score to settle with Oregon this season. Ohio State, Indiana, UCLA, Penn State, Washington – all those games matter a lot. However, Oregon matters the most. It's about Lincoln Riley finally punching back at Dan Lanning. It's USC showing who's boss on the West Coast. It's also simply a matter of the Trojans getting a real opportunity to win this matchup.

Want to guess the last time USC hosted Oregon in the regular season, not the postseason? 2019. The teams met in the Coli in 2020, but that was in the Pac-12 Championship Game, not a regularly scheduled game on the 2020 slate. The last time USC hosted Oregon in the regular season was 2019, seven long years ago. Yes, Oregon handed USC its lunch in 2023 and 2025 in Eugene. The Ducks were clearly better in each of those years, and shifting those games to the Coliseum probably would not have mattered. Nevertheless, it's wild – and ridiculous – that USC hasn't hosted Oregon in a seven-year period of time. Now USC finally gets the Ducks in Los Angeles. It's time to pay back the Ducks and send Dan Lanning walking off the field as a loser.

USC obviously recruited really well this past cycle, but the Trojans need to beat Oregon to truly begin to gain leverage over and against the Ducks. USC needs to puncture Oregon's aura of superiority on the West Coast. The Ducks have indeed been the best Pacific time zone program in college football over the past two years after Kalen DeBoer left Washington. USC needs to change that reality. Getting the upper hand over Oregon is its own reward, but achieving that goal would also highly increase the odds of the Trojans making their first College Football Playoff.

USC versus Oregon. The stakes could not be higher in 2026.

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This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: USC season preview: Trojans host Oregon for first time in a long time

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