USC had possession and the lead against Washington late in the third quarter. The Trojans were playing inspired football in the second half and turned a 13-point halftime deficit into a 1-point advantage. Now, it had the ball and a chance to build on the positive things it had done since it came out of the locker room.
Then Trojans quarterback Miller Moss dropped back on a third-and-5 and didn’t see Huskies linebacker Carson Bruener in his passing window. If he did, the decision looks even more regrettable.
A pass targeted for receiver Kyron Hudson was picked off. Just like Minnesota. Just like Maryland. USC had a second-half lead and looked to extend it, only for Moss to throw a crucial and costly interception that changed the outlook of the game.
The scriptwriters haven’t been too creative with regard to the Trojans this season. All of these losses have featured a crucial Moss turnover in the second half. The defense gives up a go-ahead score and the offense falters when it has the chance to respond. USC didn’t deviate too far from that in a 26-21 loss in Seattle on Saturday night.
The loss dropped the Trojans to 4-5 and 2-5 in Big Ten play. The last three games are against Nebraska, UCLA in the Rose Bowl and Notre Dame. Just attaining bowl eligibility will be a major fight, which is shocking to write in Year 3 of Lincoln Riley’s tenure.
A team is so often defined by its combination of coach and quarterback. At USC, there are major questions about both positions right now.
Moss’ play is certainly a significant talking point. He was off-target even though the offensive line gave him time. He threw that third-quarter interception and he led a drive down to Washington’s 14-yard line late but failed to get the offense into the end zone.
But let’s start with Riley. All of the Trojans’ woes ultimately fall on him. For as many complaints as there are about quarterback play, USC just suffered its fifth loss of the season. The Trojans had all-world quarterback play last year and lost five games then, too.
Who are the most recent USC coaches who have lost at least five games in consecutive seasons? Clay Helton and Paul Hackett. That’s not the company Riley wants to keep, but it’s the one he’s in now.
A few days after USC’s embarrassing 7-5 regular season ended last year, Riley sat down with The Athletic and assessed what happened. In Riley’s estimation, last year’s team didn’t know how to handle championship expectations and what to do in the event things went wrong.
Through nine games, this year’s team simply doesn’t make the plays necessary to win hard-fought, down-to-the-wire games. Often, it finds ways to lose them.
On Saturday night, after the defense allowed the go-ahead score in the fourth quarter, USC went on a 15-play, 77-yard drive that consumed eight minutes and 38 seconds. It had a first-and-goal from Washington’s 4-yard line. It marched down there on the back of its run game. The Trojans ran three times and passed once. None of those plays reached the end zone and USC turned it over on downs. There looked to be a missed blocking assignment on fourth-and-goal from the 1.
On its final drive of the game, the Trojans reached the Huskies’ 14-yard line and came up short of the end zone on its final three plays.
Once again, the game was there for USC. And once again, it failed to grab it.
“We’ve kind of had the anomaly of the year,” Riley said after the game. “Normally these things end up, over time, going about 50-50 on these games that come down to one play. We’ve happened to have the year that not too many of them have (gone) our way.”
That may be true, but at the end of the day the scoreboard says what it says. In a vacuum, USC might be a play or two away from winning a certain game. But it’s lost 10 games over the past two seasons. That’s not something that can be explained away with a couple of plays here or there.
Last offseason was supposed to be the one that made Riley and the program look inward and improve things to make sure something like that didn’t happen again. Instead, the best USC can do now is hope to repeat another five-loss season.
Even if the Trojans win their next two games, they’ll have to upset a top-10 Notre Dame team to avoid a sixth loss. So, record-wise, things might end up worse than last season.
USC came out flat to start this game. It was down 20-7 at the half and didn’t do much well. The Trojans looked better in the third quarter, but still couldn’t make the key plays.
They’ve now lost four of the past five games. November is when a team is supposed to hit its stride. Riley went 0-3 in November last year and his team just lost its first game of the month again.
Last year’s team regressed as the season went on. USC has suffered a bunch of injuries on defense, which is necessary context, but still, this team doesn’t look better than it did at the start of the season.
So let’s get to Moss here. He threw three interceptions on Saturday, which stands out. One was a high throw but the pass probably should’ve been caught by Kyle Ford. The other was an end-of-half Hail Mary attempt. The third one was a backbreaker. Again, in a vacuum, it doesn’t seem that bad.
But it’s a bad trend for Moss. The theory entering the season was that when USC lost Caleb Williams and his otherworldly playmaking ability, it would insert Moss, who was supposed to be the cerebral quarterback who makes good decisions, is accurate and keeps the train on the tracks offensively.
That was the appeal with Moss. So when he commits those turnovers — we mentioned the ones like Saturday, or at Michigan, or against Penn State — it opens the door for talk about getting backup quarterback Jayden Maiava more playing time.
Moss had some good moments on Saturday. A 37-yard touchdown on fourth-and-9 to Makai Lemon was a precise throw that displayed what Moss could be at his best, but as noted earlier, he wasn’t very accurate for much of the game before that. Maybe it’s an accumulation of all the hits and pressures, but, like the team, Moss’ play isn’t at the level now it was at the start of the season.
After the game, Riley was asked if there’s any temptation to give Maiava, a UNLV transfer, some reps at quarterback given where the season is.
He said: “I wouldn’t say that right now. No. For us, what we’re looking at is what is the best lineup, the best people to help us win each and every week, and we’re going to keep our focus there.”
Riley’s words always need to be parsed carefully. Right now meant Saturday night. Will that be the same in a few days or a few weeks if Moss continues to have major breakdowns?
Even if it’s not, Riley has to thoroughly evaluate his quarterback situation for 2025. Moss is a redshirt junior. He can return to school for another season.
Does Riley believe he can win at the highest levels with him or does he believe he needs to upgrade at the position? Moss isn’t a bad quarterback. He’d probably start at a lot of other programs and would do well under the right conditions.
The thing is Riley’s teams have always relied on their quarterbacks to be Superman. And right now, USC is probably asking too much of Moss. He shouldn’t be throwing 50 times like he did Saturday night and against Maryland and against Michigan. All three of those games were losses.
Year in and year out, Riley has essentially required his quarterback to elevate the team. Moss just hasn’t been able to do so.
So Riley has to figure out his answer there and find the proper path forward.
And Riley and athletic director Jen Cohen have to work together to find a way to get this program out of this rut.
Riley often mentions the progress that goes on behind the scenes. He was asked where the program has made progress after the loss Saturday night.
“I think we’ve improved in a ton of areas,” he said. “I’m frustrated as anybody that it hasn’t translated to wins and losses but it will. It will. We’re going to fight through this year. I haven’t been doing it forever but I’ve been doing it long enough to know if you’ve got the right people in the building and you’re continuing to make progress on the things that you know when, over time, that those things will take hold. …
“You’ve still got to win at the end of the day. It’s about winning. Trust me, I get that as good as anybody. But I also have to pay attention to the other 99.9 percent too. I can’t ignore that as well. Within that, I see massive progress that will pay dividends for this program and will pay dividends soon.”
USC will have next weekend off before it enters the final stretch of the season. There is nothing to play for but pride. Optimism is in very short supply. Those dividends may pay off soon. But the reality of Riley’s tenure is “soon” might come later than anyone expected – and there’s fair questions about whether it’ll come at all.
(Top photo: Joe Nicholson / Imagn Images)
