It has been an interesting offseason for the USC Trojans at the quarterback position. After seeing Miller Moss, who started the team’s first nine games in 2024, transfer to Louisville, the Trojans added five-star freshman Husan Longstreet and veteran transfer Sam Huard.

However, the team’s most likely starter to begin next season will be redshirt junior Jayden Maiava. After transferring in from UNLV last offseason, Maiava started the final four games of the 2024 season for USC, and now enters 2025 with a full year of experience in head coach Lincoln Riley’s system.

Following a recent practice, Riley affirmed his belief in Maiava as the Trojans’ starter.

“Jayden’s clearly the No. 1 quarterback right now,” Riley said.

In his four starts at the end of last season, Maiava did a lot of very good things, but also some very bad things. The Las Vegas Bowl against Texas A&M was a microcosm of this, where he had several really bad turnovers early on, but made up for them at the end by leading a game-winning touchdown drive in the game’s final minutes.

Entering 2025 as USC’s presumptive starter, Maiava will look to build off of the good things that he did last season while cutting back on the mistakes. If Maiava is able to do this, he could emerge as one of the top quarterbacks in the Big Ten.

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Lincoln Riley and Jayden Maiava face defining USC football season