Despite criticism, USC is sticking with Miller Moss as its starting quarterback

Questions swirled since Saturday, swept up in the bitter frustration of a third straight defeat and doused in the kerosene of social media. The decision Monday to close off media access would only add more speculative fuel to the fire, as fans wondered if major change might be afoot at USC.

But when Lincoln Riley was finally asked Monday night if Miller Moss would stay as the Trojans starting quarterback, the coach left no room for interpretation. He seemed, in fact, confused by the question.

“Of course,” Riley said, without hesitation. “One hundred percent.”

With USC’s season on the brink of disaster and Rutgers on tap Friday on a short week, not everyone outside the walls of Troy have expressed the same confidence in USC’s quarterback situation. Calls from fans to anoint the backup, dual threat transfer Jayden Maiava, have grown louder and louder among a vocal and frustrated contingent.

Read more: His defiance gone, Lincoln Riley struggles to explain USC's latest devastating loss

But even with the Trojans at 3-4, Riley made quite clear Monday that he’s not entertaining that idea. Not yet, at least.

“He’s still executing at a very high level,” Riley said 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 only one who needs to improve on USC’s offense, which is scoring 11 fewer points per game this season than last. The offensive line has struggled to protect him, while USC’s young receivers have been inconsistent.

Even still, the Trojans have been unusually reliant on their passing attack through seven games — even as its run game exceeds expectations. Against Maryland, Moss threw the ball 50 times, the third-highest total ever by a Riley-coached quarterback. Riley admitted that’s more than he’d like, but just three games earlier, Moss threw even more in a loss in Ann Arbor.

No Big Ten quarterback has thrown the ball this season as much as Moss, who ranks second nationally in pass attempts. But mixed among those 284 throws were a number of darts delivered by Moss into impossibly narrow windows, exactly the sort of precision passes Riley expects from his quarterback. He’d started especially strong in the season opener against Louisiana State, when Moss threw for 378 yards and led a game-winning drive in Las Vegas.

But in recent weeks, with the Big Ten slate in full swing, that late-game poise has waned, while mistakes have piled up. In all four of USC’s losses this season, Moss has thrown a critical, second-half interception that swung the momentum of the game.

On Saturday, against Maryland, it struck late in the third quarter, when a USC score might have put the game away. With pressure bearing down, Moss tried to force a pass to Zachariah Branch, only to watch Maryland’s Lavain Scruggs step in front, running 51 yards with an interception before he was caught.

The week before, against Penn State, Moss sailed a fourth-quarter pass to Duce Robinson with USC marching towards a game-winning field goal. The pass was picked off, and the Trojans lost in overtime.

Through eight starts at USC, Moss has lost four times after leading in the fourth quarter. Those losses certainly don’t lie solely on the quarterback’s shoulders, but Moss has shouldered much of the criticism.

He insists it hasn’t bothered him.

“I have a small circle of people whose opinions I care about,” Moss said. “Everyone else, you know, say what they will.”

“End of the day, like, none of that stuff really matters,” Moss said. “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 said that he thought that his quarterback was “in a good place” mentally as of Monday. His teammates echoed that sentiment.

“Miller is a really strong and tough dude mentally,” tight end Lake McRee said. “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 started the season as an inspiring tale of perseverance. But after the most recent loss Saturday, he sat slumped in his chair, staring blankly into a crowd of reporters asking questions about where the season had veered off course.

“We said at the beginning of the year we were committed to each other, no matter what, no matter what the result is,” Moss said after the game. “I think that holds true. It’s not contingent on result.”

The results, though, haven’t been anywhere close to what USC hoped. By Monday, after a day of speculation about his starting job, Moss had taken on 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, had taught him a lot about who he is.

“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 said. “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 those people in particular, Moss offered a biting message Monday.

“Obviously, people, you know, seek a lot of negativity around our team, and it is what it is," he said. "I hope they keep that same energy going forward.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.