Questions swirled since Saturday, swept up within the bitter frustration of a 3rd straight defeat and doused within the kerosene of social media. The choice Monday to shut off media entry solely added extra gas to the hearth, as followers questioned if main change is likely to be afoot at USC.
However when Lincoln Riley lastly was requested Monday night time whether or not Miller Moss would stay the Trojans beginning quarterback, the coach left no room for interpretation. He appeared, the truth is, confused by the query.
“Of course,” Riley mentioned, with out hesitation. “One hundred percent.”
With USC’s season on the point of catastrophe and Rutgers on faucet Friday on a brief week, not everybody exterior the partitions of Troy has expressed the identical confidence in USC’s quarterback scenario. Calls to anoint the backup, dual-threat switch Jayden Maiava, have grown louder and louder amongst a vocal and annoyed fan base.
However even with the Trojans at 3-4, Riley made it fairly clear he’s not entertaining that concept. Not but, not less than.
“He’s still executing at a very high level,” Riley mentioned of Moss. “He’s making a lot of plays, a lot of really good decisions. There’s always going to be a couple mistakes, and the ones that he has certainly can’t kill us. He’s had a few that have certainly got to be better, but he’s made a lot of plays, and he’s put our guys in a lot of positions to make plays.
“Of course, I expect him to improve, and he does too, but he’s also the guy that’s put us in position to win all seven of these.”
Moss is hardly the one one who wants to enhance on USC’s offense, which is scoring 11 fewer factors per sport than final season. The offensive line has struggled to guard him, whereas USC’s younger receivers have been inconsistent.
Nonetheless, the Trojans have been unusually reliant on their passing assault — at the same time as their run sport exceeds expectations. Final week in opposition to Maryland, Moss threw the ball 50 occasions, and Riley acknowledged that’s greater than he’d like. Three video games earlier Moss threw 51 occasions, the second-highest complete by a Riley-coached quarterback, in a loss in Ann Arbor.
No Huge Ten quarterback has thrown the ball as a lot as Moss, who ranks second nationally in makes an attempt. Combined amongst these 284 throws have been a variety of darts delivered into impossibly slender home windows, precisely the type of precision passes Riley expects. Moss began particularly robust within the opener in opposition to Louisiana State, throwing for 378 yards and main a game-winning drive.
However in latest weeks, with the Huge Ten slate in full swing, that late-game poise has waned, whereas errors have piled up. In all 4 losses, Moss has thrown a vital, second-half interception that swung the momentum of the sport.
On Saturday in opposition to Maryland, it struck late within the third quarter, when a USC rating might need put the sport away. With strain bearing down, Moss tried to power a go to Zachariah Department, solely to look at Maryland’s Lavain Scruggs step in entrance, operating 51 yards with an interception earlier than he was caught.
The week earlier than in opposition to Penn State, Moss sailed a fourth-quarter go to Duce Robinson with USC marching towards a possible game-winning area objective. The go was picked off, and the Trojans misplaced in additional time.
By way of eight begins, Moss has misplaced 4 occasions after main within the fourth quarter. These losses actually don’t lie solely on the quarterback’s shoulders, however Moss has shouldered a lot of the criticism. He insists it hasn’t bothered him.
“I have a small circle of people whose opinions I care about,” Moss mentioned. “Everyone else, you know, say what they will.”
“End of the day, like, none of that stuff really matters,” Moss mentioned. “What matters is who you are, what your process is, who you trust and believe in each and every day. So, I mean, it’s part of the job, but it’s also — it doesn’t mean anything.”
Riley mentioned he thought his quarterback was “in a good place” mentally Monday. His teammates echoed that sentiment.
“Miller is a really strong and tough dude mentally,” tight finish Lake McRee mentioned. “No one has to deal with more than what the quarterback does. Being close to him, seeing him on and off the field, I’m really proud of him and how he holds himself. He’s a real good leader, through thick and thin.”
Moss began the season as an inspiring story of perseverance. However after the newest loss, he sat slumped in his chair, staring blankly right into a crowd of reporters asking questions on the place the season had veered astray.
“We said at the beginning of the year we were committed to each other, no matter what, no matter what the result is,” Moss mentioned. “I think that holds true. It’s not contingent on result.”
The outcomes, although, haven’t been wherever near what USC hoped for. By Monday, after a day of hypothesis about his beginning job, Moss had taken on a extra defiant tone.
The final 5 video games, he mentioned, taught him rather a lot about who he’s.
“We’re all faced with a choice when we face difficult times, and I think who you are when you make that choice says a lot about who you are,” the quarterback mentioned. “The substance of this doesn’t lie in, like, whatever the narrative is, whatever people want to say the substance is. The power, the integrity, all that stuff, that comes to people who are able to navigate difficult things, to continue to go back out there, to continue to put their work on display in front of the world, and not the people that are continuing to tear them down no matter what.”
For these individuals specifically, Moss provided a message.
“Obviously, people, you know, seek a lot of negativity around our team, and it is what it is,” he mentioned. “I hope they keep that same energy going forward.”
