US LBM Coaches Poll places Ohio State No. 1 and Oregon No. 2, underscoring USC’s steep 2026 path

The preseason US LBM Coaches Poll, presented by USA TODAY Sports, was released Tuesday and immediately clarified what many USC fans have been anticipating for months: the Trojans’ 2026 football schedule will test them against elite competition early and often. The poll’s top two teams, Ohio State and Oregon, were ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, putting an additional layer of pressure on USC’s road into the conference title picture.

Ohio State’s placement atop the preseason voting means USC will open its national-caliber challenge against a program viewed as the league’s and the sport’s early standard-bearer. Oregon’s No. 2 ranking carries similar weight, because it frames one of USC’s key tests as a matchup between two teams that coaches around the country believe are positioned to contend for the sport’s deepest postseason run.

For USC, the relevance is straightforward but significant. The Trojans are not simply being measured against preseason expectations in general. They are being measured against the same preseason hierarchy that assigns Ohio State and Oregon the highest marks among all teams entering the year, a structure that shapes how the national conversation forms before a single snap is played.

This is also why the poll matters beyond the rankings themselves. Preseason coaches polls influence public perception and early narratives, and they can also affect how programs manage their offseason priorities. When the teams on your schedule are already receiving top-tier national votes, the margin for error shrinks, especially when a program is also trying to prove it can handle high-leverage moments against opponents expected to be at or near the top of the conference and national standings.

The poll’s release does not decide the season. It is a snapshot of what coaches and voters think is possible, based on team quality, recent trajectories, and offseason outlook, not on verified results from the 2026 campaign. But in USC’s case, the preseason structure makes the difficulty of the schedule harder to ignore. When a team faces two programs that have been elevated to the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in a major preseason poll, those games become built-in reference points for how far USC can go.

The immediate watch items for USC are therefore not about the poll alone. They are about whether the Trojans can translate preseason expectations into repeatable execution against opponents that the broader coaching community has singled out as the sport’s most formidable threats. If USC shows it can match the tempo, discipline, and consistency associated with No. 1-level and No. 2-level teams, it reshapes how the season is viewed. If not, the preseason rankings will quickly become more than a talking point, turning into an early explanation for why the path to the conference championship remains narrow.