Saturday’s USC-Oregon matchup has plenty riding on it, but the spotlight lands squarely on the quarterbacks.
No. 12 USC welcomes No.
20 Oregon to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in a game that once looked like a showcase for two of the country’s top draft-eligible passers. It still carries that kind of weight, only now it feels even more urgent.
Jayden Maiava and Dante Moore are both projected first-round picks by CBS Sports NFL Draft analyst Ryan Wilson, and both can help their cases in a major way with a strong showing.
The two already know each other well. Oregon beat USC 42-27 in Eugene last season, and Moore turned in a sharp outing in that win. This meeting comes with different circumstances, though, and with both programs facing a pivotal early-season moment.
Maiava has been the more explosive quarterback so far.
Through the opening stretch, he leads the nation with 12 touchdown passes and has thrown at least 260 yards and two scores in every game this season. His numbers pop across the board: 293.3 passing yards per game, 10.2 yards per attempt, a 75.7% completion rate and a 136.4 NFL passer rating. He has also been efficient in the most important way, with an interception rate of just 0.9%.
What’s made Maiava stand out is how quickly he has gone from intriguing transfer to centerpiece. After a strong debut 2023 season at UNLV, he entered the portal and landed at USC with no guarantee of a starting job.
Miller Moss had two years of eligibility, and Husan Longstreet was waiting in the pipeline. Still, Maiava got on the field plenty as a sophomore and then took over as the full-time starter as a junior.
Lincoln Riley’s track record with transfer quarterbacks helped set the stage, but Maiava has clearly made the leap on his own. The Hawaii native threw for 3,711 yards and 24 touchdowns last season, and the touchdown production has jumped even higher this year. His touchdown rate sits at 10.4% of pass attempts, up from 6.0% last season.
The offense has also been settling in around him. With star freshman Trent Mosley out of the lineup, Kayden Dixon-Wyatt and Corey Simms stepped forward late, and the timing with the new top targets has started to improve. That only makes USC more dangerous if the chemistry keeps building.
There’s still a clear checkpoint for Maiava in a game like this. He threw for 306 yards and three touchdowns against Oregon last season, but he also tossed six interceptions in five ranked matchups. Keeping the ball out of harm’s way will matter as much as the big plays.
Moore, meanwhile, came back to school with a different kind of pressure on him.
After turning down the NFL Draft, the Detroit native returned to Oregon even though he would have almost certainly been the No. 2 pick. He made that choice because he felt he still had more growing up to do in Eugene. So far, the results have been uneven.
In three games, Moore has not yet looked like a quarterback fully living up to that billing. His toughest outing came in a 39-31 loss to Oklahoma State, when he completed only 48.3% of his passes for 191 yards. He also posted a 30.8% pressure-to-sack rate, a rough sign that he struggled to handle pressure and get the ball out.
Moore has cleaned up the turnover issues that followed him early in his career, but the caution can still creep in. As a freshman at UCLA, he threw 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
Last season, in six games against ranked opponents after September, he threw nine touchdowns and eight interceptions. At times, the desire to avoid mistakes has made him too conservative.
The underlying talent is still obvious, and USC gives him a chance to reset the conversation. Last year against the Trojans, Moore completed 73% of his passes for 257 yards with two touchdowns and an interception in Oregon’s 42-27 win. Another efficient, turnover-free performance would go a long way toward putting him back in the right light.
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