Rival Views: Who is nation's best three-loss team?

Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell and National Recruiting Analyst Adam Gorney don’t always see eye to eye. In this edition of Rival Views, the two debate about which is the best three-loss team in college football.

Surprisingly, there are many choices here but I’ll go with LSU over teams like USC, Florida State, Auburn and Texas A&M. Why the Tigers? For one thing, they played Alabama about as close as anyone will this season. The defense is outstanding, the double-headed monster of Leonard Fournette and Derrius Guice is lethal and since Ed Orgeron took over, they have been playing with a lot of heart.

The only losses for LSU have come at the hands of Wisconsin, a top 10 team, Auburn, just recently a top 10 team and Alabama, the best team in the country. Any one of those games could have gone a different way with some offensive help, especially from the quarterback position. The fact that LSU is so formidable without a solution at quarterback speaks volumes and it would hang with any playoff team out there. USC is on a roll, Auburn was flying high before getting grounded this weekend at Georgia and the Aggies were a tough out before Trevor Knight went down, but give me LSU and that running game and defense as a three-loss team that could hang with anyone.

There are a number of really talented teams with three losses but at this point in the season, there’s little doubt that USC is the best three-loss team.

The Trojans manhandled previously unbeaten Washington 26-13 on the Huskies’ home field and really looked like the better club all night. It wasn’t a shocking late touchdown or goal-line stop that propelled USC to the win.

That’s the way it’s been for USC almost the entire time since QB Sam Darnold landed the starting job. The offense is moving well, the defense is playing great and everything has really been going smoothly.

I’ve always believed USC recruits so well, with so many talented players on both sides of the ball that if the Trojans would stop getting out of their own way and finally get some solid coaching, they could play with anybody in the country.

USC has proven that the last few weeks by beating Arizona State, taking down Colorado, going to Arizona and winning, thrashing Cal and Oregon and then going up to Washington and beating the undefeated Huskies soundly.

Three-loss USC is playing just about as well as any team in the country, many of them with one-loss or two. USC would definitely beat or be in the ball game against Wisconsin, Texas A&M, Auburn, Penn State, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech and many other schools ranked of the Trojans. If USC played Alabama tonight, the Trojans wouldn’t win, but they wouldn’t lose 52-6 like in the season-opener.

USC is playing great football and is talented enough to possibly be in the College Football Playoff hunt.