LOS ANGELES — The call that Jayden Maiava has been waiting for came on Monday night, his phone buzzing as USC’s season continued to slip.
It was almost like he had two children in his quarterback room, USC head coach Lincoln Riley explained with a wistful smile Tuesday. And Miller Moss had been the golden boy, ever since a December performance in the Holiday Bowl where he seized the reins left behind by Caleb Williams and warded off most all challengers to his throne. But Maiava, still, took on the challenge in the winter, transferring in from UNLV and making it clear he intended to “push” Moss.
After a QB1 battle in fall camp that Riley emphasized then was “neck-and-neck,” Maiava felt like he had “won the competition,” according to a source familiar with the situation. Still, Riley told Maiava that Moss was getting the job. And the head coach stuck by him, staunchly, through weeks of offensive inconsistency that slowly dimmed Moss’ shine; when asked after USC’s loss to Washington on Saturday night if there was a temptation to find more snaps for Maiava down the stretch, Riley responded, “no, I wouldn’t say that.”
What he would say, the key: he was looking for the best people to help a 4-5 USC team win.
And so Riley informed Maiava, on Monday night, that he had been named USC’s starter, a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed to the Southern California News Group. 247Sports’ Connor Morrissette first reported Maiava would take over as the starter against Nebraska on Nov. 16.
When asked what changed in his thinking on Tuesday, Riley shrugged off the notion he had said Saturday that he didn’t intend to find snaps for Maiava. He had “two good players” in the room, Riley explained. This wasn’t about optics, or about looking to the future with a younger Maiava, or about drastically reinventing USC’s offense, the head coach made clear. It was about Nebraska.
“We have two good players in the room, and when we went back and looked at it, we felt like it was in the best interest of the team to give Jayden a chance here,” Riley said. “It’s that simple.”
Externally, though, USC’s fan base has been increasingly clamoring for the move for weeks. USC has averaged the fewest points per game with Moss at the helm in 2024 (30.6) than any year of a Riley-coached or coordinated team since 2011. The quarterback position, as Riley pointed Tuesday, was a “lightning rod,” and Moss had absorbed a large brunt of the fan base’s ire through a stretch of four losses in five games.
“I want to say, like, listen, Miller Moss has done a really good job for us,” Riley said Tuesday. “Like, we – you could literally not change one thing that Miller’s done and we could be sitting here with a really, really good record right now. Miller has done a very good job.”
Moss, however, has thrown nine interceptions in his last seven games, particularly tossing a few back-breaking picks in games against Minnesota, Penn State and Washington. Uncharacteristically, he didn’t show up at the postgame podium, either, after throwing three interceptions in the loss to Washington on Saturday night. And after Maiava threw for 3,085 yards with 17 touchdowns in 2023 at UNLV, adding dual-threat potential with 277 yards and three scores on the ground, Riley was adamant Tuesday that the redshirt sophomore transfer has “improved throughout the year.”
“He finally has a chance to show the world,” a source familiar with the situation said of Maiava, “and he’s been working his ass off.”
The world, in truth, almost never got to see it. For all of a day, in the transfer portal in the winter, Maiava was originally committed to Georgia, a decision that uncle David Tautofi indicated to the Southern California News Group was largely based on a larger verbal NIL offer. But after sleeping on it, Maiava decided to flip to USC, wanting all along to develop in Riley’s system.
“We were lucky,” Tautofi told SCNG in the summer, “that USC was willing to take him.”
Maiava impressed in USC’s spring game, and felt in the fall he was “getting a fair amount of reps” in splitting time with Moss, as Maiava’s quarterback coach Ryan Porter said. But the transfer humbly accepted a backup role after Riley officially publicly tabbed Moss, as Maiava made clear after the Utah State game.
“I was like, ‘Hey, by all means, anything we gotta do to win,’” Maiava told reporters then, in early September. “So, me and … me and Miller, we all got one thing in common, and that’s just putting the team in the best position to win games.”
Through weeks as a backup, Maiava’s camp had tried to keep him focused on the opportunity at USC, a source said, rather than looking ahead to the possibility of transferring again following the season. And sitting behind Moss, Porter said, benefitted Maiava. He entered USC’s program still raw, with everything he had done at both UNLV and high school football in Las Vegas and Hawaii coming “purely instinctive,” Porter said.
“He gets to sit back. There isn’t really any unrealistic expectations on him,” Porter told SCNG. “Not that he wouldn’t have been ready to do that … but it’s to say, it’s like, ‘Okay, let’s understand the system,’ right? Let’s get a feel for the players on the team, the coaches.”
Porter, who has also long worked with current Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels, called Maiava fundamentally “as gifted as anybody I’ve ever been around.” But development has been needed, after a slightly turnover-prone year at UNLV. Since arriving at USC, Porter said Maiava has been honing his understanding of pass protection with uncle Uriah Moenoa, a former Hawai’i offensive lineman who now lives in Orange County.
The shift could bring massive ripple effects for USC, a clear look toward the future with three games left to play in what has shaped up as a lost season, in terms of the College Football Playoff. Riley has stuck by Moss publicly through weeks of questions around his status as USC’s starter, but after the one-time fan favorite Moss spent two years for Riley backing up Caleb Williams, it would be hard to imagine him returning to USC in 2025 given the switch to Maiava.
“He’ll come and go to work for this team,” Riley said Tuesday of Moss’ future, “and he’ll be ready for his next opportunity, no matter where it is. And we’re going to continue to push and coach him to help him.”
How USC’s locker room handles the move, too, will be a point of emphasis in this bye week. Moss has been emphasized by coaches and teammates alike as the program’s leader ever since the Holiday Bowl, and Riley made clear it was plenty tough to deliver the news.
For Moss, it could mark the end of a long road at USC. For Maiava, it will mark the beginning, as Riley will see what he has in a young talent brimming with potential.
“I said it at the beginning of the year,” Porter told the SCNG. “I said – once he steps onto that field, he ain’t coming off.”
