The questions have been swirling since Saturday, mixed with the bitter frustration of a third defeat in a row and doused with the kerosene of social media. Monday’s decision to cut off media access only added fuel to the fire as fans wondered if big changes were coming at USC.
But when Lincoln Riley was finally asked Monday night whether Miller Moss would remain the Trojans’ starting quarterback, the coach left no room for interpretation. He actually seemed confused by the question.
“Of course,” Riley said without hesitation. “One hundred percent.”
With USC’s season on the brink of disaster and Rutgers coming off a short week on Friday, not everyone outside the walls of Troy has expressed the same confidence in USC’s quarterback situation. Calls to anoint backup, dual-threat transfer Jayden Maiava have grown louder and louder among a vocal and frustrated fan base.
Read more: Now out of defiance, Lincoln Riley struggles to explain USC’s latest devastating loss
But even with the Trojans at 3-4, Riley made it very clear he wasn’t entertaining that idea. Not yet, at least.
“He’s still performing at a very high level,” Riley said of Moss. “He plays a lot and makes a lot of good decisions. There will always be some mistakes, and the mistakes he makes certainly can’t kill us. He’s had a few that should definitely be better, but he’s played a lot and he has put our guys in a lot of positions to play.
“Of course I expect him to improve, and he does, but he is also the man who put us in a position to win all seven.”
Moss is certainly not the only one who needs to improve USC’s offense, which is scoring 11 fewer points per game than last season. The offensive line has struggled to protect him, while USC’s young receivers have been inconsistent.
Still, the Trojans have been extremely reliant on their passing attack, even as their run game exceeds expectations. Last week against Maryland, Moss threw the ball 50 times, and Riley acknowledged that was more than he would like. Three games earlier, Moss threw 51 times, the second-highest total by a Riley-coached quarterback, in a loss in Ann Arbor.
No Big Ten quarterback has thrown the ball as often as Moss, who ranks second nationally in attempts. Between those 284 throws, a number of darts were fired into impossibly narrow windows, exactly the kind of precision passes Riley expects. Moss started off particularly strong in the opener against Louisiana State, throwing for 378 yards and leading a game-winning drive.
But in recent weeks, with the Big Ten slate in full swing, that late-game poise has waned as the mistakes have piled up. In all four losses, Moss has thrown a critical second-half interception that changed the momentum of the game.
On Saturday against Maryland, it didn’t strike until late in the third quarter, when a USC score might have put the game away. As the pressure dropped, Moss tried to force a pass to Zachariah Branch, only to see Maryland’s Lavain Scruggs step forward, running 51 yards with an interception before being caught.
The week before, against Penn State, Moss sailed a fourth-quarter pass to Duce Robinson, with USC marching toward a potential game-winning field goal. The pass was picked off and the Trojans lost in overtime.
After eight starts, Moss lost four times after leading in the fourth quarter. Those losses are certainly not solely on the shoulders of the quarterback, but Moss has shouldered a lot of the criticism. He insists it doesn’t bother him.
“I have a small circle of people whose opinions interest me,” Moss said. “Everyone else, you know, says what they want.”
“At the end of the day, none of that stuff really matters,” Moss said. “It’s about who you are, what your process is, who you trust and believe every day. So I mean, it’s part of the job, but it’s also – it’s not mean something.”
Riley said he thought his quarterback was “in a good place” mentally on Monday. His teammates echoed that sentiment.
“Miller is a very strong and tough guy mentally,” Lake McRee said. “Nobody has to deal with more than what the quarterback does. Being close to him and seeing him on and off the pitch, I’m really proud of him and how he carries himself. He is a very good leader, through thick and thin.”
Moss started the season as an inspiring story of perseverance. But after the most recent loss, he sat slumped in his chair and stared blankly at a crowd of reporters asking questions about where the season had veered off course.
“We said at the beginning of the year that we were committed to each other, no matter what happened, no matter the outcome,” Moss said. “I think that’s right. It is not dependent on results.”
However, the results weren’t close to what USC was hoping for. On Monday, after a day of speculation about his starting job, Moss had taken a more defiant tone.
Read more: With Eric Gentry and Anthony Lucas out, USC’s defense must rely on its freshmen
The last five games, he said, have taught him a lot about who he is.
“We all face a choice when we go through tough times, and I think who you are when you make that choice says a lot about who you are,” the quarterback said. “The substance of this is not in whatever the story is, whatever people want to say the substance is. The strength, the integrity, all that stuff, that comes from people who are able to navigate through difficult things, to get back out there, to continue to exhibit their work to the world, and not the people who do. they keep breaking down no matter what.”
Moss offered a message especially for those people.
“Obviously people are looking for a lot of negativity around our team, and that’s what it is,” he said. “I hope they keep that same energy going forward.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
