ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — After missing its chance to get into the College Football Playoff, Southern California is going to the Cotton Bowl to play the highest-ranked Group of Five team in a stadium where coach Lincoln Riley won a few championships before taking over the Trojans.
Two days after losing in the Pac-12 championship game, when a win very likely would have put them in the four-team CFP playoff, the Trojans got matched Sunday to play American Athletic Conference champion Tulane on Jan. 2. Both are 11-2 teams that have made record improvements this season.
The Green Wave went from 2-10 last season to matching an FBS record with their nine-win improvement — with a chance to get one more in their most significant bowl game since the Sugar Bowl on New Year's Day 1940, when they were in the Southeastern Conference. Hawaii went from a winless season in 1998 to 9-4 a year later in coach June Jones' debut.
Tulane was 16th in the final CFP rankings, six spots behind USC. The two teams have played three times, but not since 1946.
Before moving to the West Coast around this time last year, Riley was head coach at Oklahoma for five seasons. In his first four seasons there, the Sooners won four consecutive Big 12 championship games from 2017-20 at the home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys where the Cotton Bowl is also played. Oklahoma made the playoff after three of those, losing in a national semifinal each time.
The Trojans have already matched the program’s biggest season-to-season improvement, going from 4-8 last year to seven more wins in Riley's first year. Their first AP national championship was an 11-0 run in 1962 that followed a 4-5-1 season.
Both USC losses this season are to Utah, including 47-24 in the Pac-12 championship game. The Trojans are going to their third Cotton Bowl, the second at AT&T Stadium, and 56th bowl overall.
Tulane's first Cotton Bowl will be the the program's fourth bowl appearance in seven seasons under coach Willie Fritz.
Trojans quarterback Caleb Williams, likely a Heisman Trophy finalist, threw for 363 yards and three touchdowns Friday night against the Utes, even after injuring his hamstring on a 59-yard run before halftime. He has some extra time to recover, depending on the severity of the injury.
The Green Wave beat UCF 45-28 in the American Athletic Conference championship game Saturday, when quarterback Michael Pratt accounted for 442 total yards and five touchdowns, and Tyjae Spears had 199 yards rushing with a 60-yard score to extend his FBS-best active streak of 100-yard games to seven.
RANKED vs. RANKED WAVES
Tulane will go into the Cotton Bowl after back-to-back wins when ranked and playing a Top 25 opponent.
The Green Wave's win in the AAC title game over then-No. 22 UCF was a week after they won at then-No. 24 Cincinnati, ending the Bearcats' 32-game home winning streak. That also snapped Tulane's 61-game losing streak against ranked teams, which dated to 1984 and was the longest such streak in poll history.
Before beating Cincinnati, the Green Wave hadn't won a game against another Top 25 team when ranked since 1956, and the school said there were 24,142 days between those games. They needed only seven days to do it again.
BACK-TO-BACK HEISMAN WINNERS?
With Williams a top candidate, the Cotton Bowl could have back-to-back games featuring Heisman Trophy winners. Alabama and Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Bryce Young played in last season's CFP semifinal at the Cotton Bowl.
The last back-to-back Heisman winners in the Cotton Bowl were Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie in 1984, and Auburn running back Bo Jackson in 1985.
MEN OF TROY AT JERRYWORLD
USC will play its third game at AT&T Stadium. Tulane has never played there.
The Trojans lost their 2016 season opener there 52-6 to Alabama, and another scheduled game against the Tide at JerryWorld in 2020 was canceled because of the pandemic. USC lost to Ohio State 24-7 in the Cotton Bowl five years ago.
G5 AGAIN
When Cincinnati last season became the first Group of Five team to make the four-team playoff, the Bearcats played their national semifinal game against Alabama in the Cotton Bowl.
With this season being the Cotton Bowl’s actual turn in the rotation to host the highest-ranked G5 team, it becomes the first New Year’s Six bowl to host G5 teams in back-to-back years since the four-team playoff began in 2014.
