With the removal of Notre Dame from the USC football schedule until at least 2030, it opens up some interesting scheduling possibilities for the Trojans over the next few years.
Currently, the 2026 schedule has the Trojans just playing 11 games, so they need to add a non-conference game to fill it out. While I believe the Trojans would like to find a P4 opponent to replace the Irish, that might be tough to do in 2026, and it's not a requirement in the Big Ten yet (although I would expect that to change very soon, probably by 2027).