The USC Trojans host the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Saturday afternoon. The Trojans come into the game as home underdogs.

Did ESPN’s College GameDay team pick USC to pull off an upset over its rivals?

GameDay favors Notre Dame to beat USC

ESPN’s College Gameday team was in College Station, Texas, Saturday night for the rivalry game between the Texas Longhorns and the Texas A&M Aggies. The winner earns a spot in the SEC Championship game against Georgia’s Bulldogs.

The GameDay crew all picked Notre Dame to beat the Trojans. However, host Rece Davis predicted USC would win the game.

Davis doesn’t normally pick games, but after watching the entire panel beat Notre Dame, he obviously wanted to get ahead of the jinx of the whole show and pick just one team.

USC plays spoiler

The USC Trojans’ Big Ten and College Football Playoff hopes were dashed weeks ago. In their final game, USC secured a spot in the bowl game with a 19-13 win over rival UCLA Bruins. The Trojans face another rival on Saturday at the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Notre Dame has a 10-1 record and Saturday’s game at USC will be the final game before the final College Football Playoff rankings are released. The Fighting Irish don’t play in a conference, so they don’t have a conference championship game next week.

The Fighting Irish are currently ranked No. 5 in the country and will secure a spot in the playoffs with a win. A loss would seriously jeopardize that.

This is the first season with the 12-team playoffs. 5 of the 12 bids are automatic bids given to the top 5 conference winners. Notre Dame cannot receive any of these automatic bids. They must be among the seven next best teams. They’re in a great place right now.

However, if Notre Dame lost, they would sweat out the selection show at 10-2. The Trojans would love to put their long-time rivals in their place.