USC football mailbag: Assessing the Trojans’ 1-2 start

Let’s start with a look at the brief history of the College Football Playoff.
Since the four-team postseason format was introduced in 2014, no team has reached the playoff with more than one loss. Of the 16 teams to have made the playoff, 13 did so with one loss and three were undefeated. No two-loss team has reached the field.
Based on the precedent, a second loss for a team is, in effect, playoff-eliminating.
This is a constructive way to look at the early years of Clay Helton’s te