Jayden Maiava isn’t the first name most people would circle in the 2026 Heisman Trophy race, but USC has a built-in path to change that fast. If the Trojans turn their preseason buzz into a College Football Playoff berth, their quarterback will be impossible to keep out of the conversation for long.
USC enters 2026 at No. 14 after opening the 2025 season unranked in the AP Top 25, and several respected college football analysts have already projected the Trojans to reach the playoff and beat legitimate national title contenders along the way. If that happens, Maiava figures to be at the center of it.
He begins his final college season in Los Angeles after a huge 2025 campaign. Maiava led the nation with a 91.2 QBR, threw for 3,711 yards and 24 touchdowns, and averaged 9.2 yards per attempt in his first full season as USC’s starter. Those numbers give him a real foundation, even if he’s still operating in dark-horse territory at +2500 to win the Heisman Trophy, according to DraftKings.
That price tag tells the story. Maiava is well behind the quarterbacks who opened the season as the favorites, and he doesn’t have the same national spotlight as Carr, Manning or Moore. USC also still has to prove it can hold up at the level people expect.
But Maiava has a major edge working in his favor: Lincoln Riley. Riley has already coached three Heisman-winning quarterbacks in Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray and Caleb Williams, plus Jalen Hurts, who finished second in the 2019 voting. USC’s offense is built to put its quarterback in position to put up numbers, and Maiava now has a full year in Riley’s system under his belt.
The real question is whether he can keep that production rolling when the stage gets bigger and the pressure spikes. USC’s schedule gives him the kind of chances that can reshape a season - and a Heisman campaign.
The Trojans have four huge games against Oregon, Penn State, Ohio State and Indiana that could define everything. A road trip to Penn State for the White Out will put Maiava in one of the toughest environments in college football. A win there, especially if he keeps the turnovers down, would land on his résumé in a big way.
Then comes the Halloween showdown at home against Ohio State, and that one may be the biggest spotlight game of all. The Buckeyes are coming in with one of the nation’s most talented rosters and as a favorite to win the national championship, which makes it a direct test of whether Maiava can produce against the elite.
Oregon brings a different kind of challenge. That home matchup could turn into a shootout, and USC may need Maiava to make plays down the field and finish drives in the red zone just to keep pace.
Indiana also looms as another important game, one that could matter plenty for USC’s playoff hopes and give Maiava another chance to pad his case.
If USC finishes 10-2 or even 9-3 with multiple big wins, the Trojans could be in the playoff mix. If they go 2-1 against Penn State, Ohio State and Oregon, Maiava could stack up multiple signature victories against top-tier opponents and keep USC in the national picture deep into the season.
That’s where the Heisman case starts to sharpen. The better USC looks, the harder it becomes to separate the Trojans from the quarterback leading them.
Maiava is still a long way from the center of the Heisman race, and +2500 reflects that. But if USC gets back on the national stage, his odds may not stay there for long. And if he’s the one steering the Trojans into the playoff, he’ll be awfully hard to ignore.
In Other News...
USC Just Got Another Reminder It No Longer Looks Like An Elite Program
USCs place in the national conversation has become a little easier to measure by who is missing from the preseason spotlight. The Trojans did not place a single player on the USA TODAY Sports preseason All-America college football team, a list that leaned heavily toward the sports familiar heavyweights from Oregon, Ohio State, Indiana, Georgia and Texas. For a program that still carries a blueblood name, it is another sign that the market no longer treats USC like one of the sports defining powers.
The bigger concern is how often this sort of reminder keeps arriving for a team that has not reached the College Football Playoff in 12 seasons and now heads into a pivotal 2026 campaign under Lincoln Riley. USC is still being measured against the standard set by programs such as Ohio State and Oregon, but the preseason rankings suggest it has work to do before it can claim that tier again. For a fan base used to thinking in championships, the gap between reputation and reality is becoming harder to ignore. [Read more 🡒]
USC May Have Found A New Weapon Sooner Than Expected
USCs 42-26 win over San Jos State offered an early glimpse of a player who may have arrived sooner than expected. True freshman Trent Mosley caught seven passes for 118 yards in his college debut, becoming the first USC freshman since 2014 to clear 100 receiving yards in a first game and giving the Trojans another dynamic option to watch as the season unfolds.
The performance came on a day when USC was also sorting out its leadership structure, naming Tobias Raymond, Kilian OConnor, Alex VanSumeren and Jayden Maiava as permanent captains for the season. OConnor is currently sidelined by injury but remains part of that leadership group, while the program also unveiled the Progressive Insurance logo on the field as part of a multiyear sponsorship agreement, another sign of how much is changing around the team even as Mosleys emergence grabs the attention. [Read more 🡒]
USC Freshman TE Is Drawing A Comparison Trojans Fans Will Notice
Mark Bowman has barely gotten his USC career underway, but the freshman tight end is already generating the kind of buzz that tends to follow special talent. After a quiet debut in which he had limited production, Bowman still left enough of an impression for college football analyst David Pollack to point to his potential, which is exactly the sort of early conversation Trojans fans like to hear about a young pass-catcher in their system.
The comparison gaining traction is one USC supporters will recognize quickly: Brock Bowers. The former Georgia star piled up a rare college rsum, winning two national championships and the Mackey Award twice before heading to the Las Vegas Raiders, and an SEC coach reportedly sees some of that same upside in Bowman. For a freshman just beginning to carve out his role, being mentioned in the same breath as Bowers says plenty about the ceiling USC thinks it may be working with. [Read more 🡒]