LOS ANGELES – This change at quarterback, Lincoln Riley emphasized, was not about the future.
Yes, Jayden Maiava is a season of eligibility younger than Miller Moss. Yes, USC and Riley need a stable contingency plan at QB in years to come, with smoke rising around a potential flip to Colorado for top 2025 prize Julian Lewis. But the seismic shift from Moss to Maiava, Riley said last week, was a “decision with two weeks to go.”
“This is just about this week, because there’s so much to unfold,” Riley said, speaking on USC’s matchup with Nebraska Saturday. “And, I just feel like I owe it to Jonah Monheim, and all the other guys here, that’ll be playing their last few games as Trojans here coming up.”
“I mean,” he continued a few words later, “you only get so many moments with this team.”
And so USC will see what it has in Maiava, and the world will see what it has in USC, mired in a transitional season in which any tangible hopes have long since slipped away with repeated late-game heartbreak. Three games remain, and USC sits at 4-5, two wins away from NCAA-defined bowl eligibility – a status they’ve missed exactly twice in their last 25 years as a program.
A postseason win could prove a palate-cleanser, and reclaim some hope in Riley’s rebuild, similar to the Holiday Bowl phenomenon of 2023. But the road to winning two out of three is tricky, with Nebraska this upcoming Saturday and a pair of intriguing rivalry-week matchups on the horizon.
Saturday, Nov. 16: Nebraska
The Cornhuskers will bring a corn maze of mystery from Lincoln, an early-season Big Ten darling that has cratered in recent weeks. Nebraska hasn’t reached 350 yards of total offense or 25 points since September, and head coach Matt Rhule took drastic action last week, flying in former Houston head coach and longtime Air Raid discipline Dana Holgorsen in to help work with Nebraska’s offense.
On Monday, Rhule took the ambiguous addition one step further – announcing Holgorsen had been officially hired as his program’s offensive coordinator and would serve as play-caller against USC.
“I think he just kinda gives us a fresh perspective,” Rhule told Nebraska media on Monday, “a look at kinda what we’re doing, and who we’re doing it with.”
It’s a rare mid-season development that will reunite two Mike Leach disciples, as both Riley and Holgorsen were key parts of Leach’s staff at Texas Tech in the mid-2000s. The weapons at Holgorsen’s disposal Saturday, though, may be limited; five-star freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola exited with a back injury in Nebraska’s loss to UCLA Nov. 2, and Rhule said the Cornhuskers would prepare backups Henrich Haarberg and Danny Kaelin to play against USC.
Nov. 23: at UCLA
the two football powers of Los Angeles couldn’t have presented themselves more differently, back at their arrivals to the Big Ten in the conference’s media days in July.
Riley told a group of breakout reporters, emphatically, that USC was at the “top of any conference.”
Foster stammered through the start of his presser in Indianapolis, with the now-infamous mantra: “We’re in LA.”
And yet, four months later, USC and UCLA both sit at 4-5, and the Bruins – at 3-4 – suddenly sit higher than USC in their first year in the Big Ten. After looking utterly hopeless offensively for two months, UCLA has ground out three straight wins, riding a strong secondary and suddenly improved ground game into a trip to Washington this weekend.
A month ago, this game looked like a mismatch for USC. But UCLA is improving and the rivalry game is never a given. This one may determine which team is bowl eligible and which isn’t.
Nov. 30: Notre Dame
There’s a reason why Riley has hinted at eventually moving the historic Notre Dame rivalry off USC’s schedule.
If USC splits contests with Nebraska and UCLA, it finds itself in a brutal spot at the end of its regular season, with the 10th-ranked Fighting Irish as the potential gatekeeper to a bowl game for the Trojans. After USC has faced an ever-cycling array of Big Ten defenses that have sought to beat up USC in the trenches and limit possessions, this Notre Dame program brings an evolved version of the exact-same flavor: currently ranked fifth in the FBS in rush-yards-per-carry and second in opposing passing-yards-per-game.