Lincoln Riley says Miller Moss is "of course" still USC's starting quarterback

Any time a team struggles as USC has this year, fans and the media alike are going to quickly turn to the one option that most football observers think will bring about the biggest change in the shortest amount of time, a quarterback change. That's why the old adage says that the most popular player on any team is always the backup quarterback.

Following USC's 29-28 loss to Maryland on Saturday, many fans and even some notable USC alums have been calling for the Trojans to replace starting QB Miller Moss with backup Jayden Maiava, a transfer from UNLV who started 14 games for the Rebels last season.

However, a change at that position is not in the immediate cards. That's according to head coach Lincoln Riley who steadfastly stood behind his starter Monday night when asked whether Moss was still his starting QB.

"Of course," Riley said. "A hundred percent."

Many have been critical of Moss' play during Big Ten action. While he has thrown multiple touchdown passes in four of the five conference games thus far, he's also been picked off all five Big Ten games USC has played. What's more, many of those interceptions have come at the most inopportune of times.

Additionally, after completing over 70% of his passes in the first two games of the year, Moss is completing only 61.9% of his passes in conference action. His TD: INT ratio during league games is also an unacceptable 2: 1.

Still, Riley expressed confidence in his starting QB on Monday. He said that mentally, Moss is where he needs to be.

"I think he's in a good place," Riley said. "I think, like all of us, he's had to...it's kind of a mind trick on you right now because people that watch the tape and watch how we've played and watch how we've progressed, that tells you one thing and then you go look at the record and that tells you another thing.

"You gotta really stay true to what you see on tape, what can we do to get better, and do we just keep going and going and going? And he's had to do that. Everybody in our program has had to do that. And that's just part of it. That's part of being a leader. It's part of when you have the word 'quarterback' by your name. That's part of it.

"Everybody goes through tough stretches. Everybody goes through times when things don't fall your way and the best ones continue to battle. He's one of the best ones and he's going to continue to battle."

Of course, you would expect Riley to publicly support his quarterback like this. It is the only way to proceed unless he is truly considering a change at the position, which it doesn't appear that he is.

Still, Moss is going to be under a microscope until his play improves and he starts leading his team to conference wins. Only if that happens will Riley get to stop answering questions about the status of his starting QB.