LOS ANGELES – Lincoln Riley says this change at quarterback Negative about the future.

Yes, Jayden Maiava is a season younger than Miller Moss. Yes, USC and Riley need a stable contingency plan with smoke rising at QB for years to come. There is potential for 2025 top prize Julian Lewis to move to Colorado. But Riley told Maiava last week that the seismic shift from Moss was “a decision that’s two weeks away.”

“It’s just this week because there’s so much to come,” Riley said of USC’s matchup with Nebraska on Saturday. “And I feel like I owe it to Jonah Monheim and all the other guys here who are going to play their last few games as the Trojans get closer.”

“I mean,” he continued after a few words, “you only get so many memories with this team.”

And so USC will see what happened with Maiava, and the world will see what happened at USC, mired in a transitional season in which concrete hope has long been lost due to repeated late-game heartbreaks. Three games left and USC is at 4-5, two wins away. NCAA defined bowl eligibility – something they as a program have missed exactly twice in the last 25 years.

A postseason win could clear the palate and restore hope for Riley’s rebuild. Similar to the Holiday Bowl phenomenon in 2023. But with Nebraska next Saturday and a pair of intriguing rivalry week matchups on the horizon, the path to winning two out of three is a rocky one.

Saturday, November 16: Nebraska

The Cornhuskers will bring a mysterious corn maze from Lincoln, an early-season Big Ten favorite that has been making a crater in recent weeks. Nebraska hasn’t reached 350 yards of total offense or 25 points since September, and head coach Matt Rhule made the drastic move of replacing the former Houston head coach last week. and Dana Holgorsen, a longtime Air Raid recruit to help Nebraska’s offense.

On Monday, Rhule took the tentative addition a step further and announced that Holgorsen had officially been hired as his program’s offensive coordinator and will serve as the starting quarterback against USC.

“I think it gives us a new perspective,” Rhule told Nebraska media on Monday. “A look at what we do and who we do it with.”

This is a rare midseason development that will reunite two of Mike Leach’s disciples, as both Riley and Holgorsen were key parts of Leach’s staff at Texas Tech in the mid-2000s. But Holgorsen may have limited weapons at his disposal on Saturday; five-star freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola Rhule suffered a back injury during Nebraska’s loss to UCLA on Nov. 2, and Rhule was sidelined by the Cornhuskers. He would draft backups Henrich Haarberg and Danny Kaelin to play against USC.

November 23: At UCLA

Los Angeles’ two football powers couldn’t have presented themselves more differently when they arrived in the Big Ten during the conference’s media days in July.

Riley emphasized to a group of trailblazing reporters that USC was “at the top of any conference.”

Foster stammered out the now-famous mantra at the start of the presser in Indianapolis: “We’re in Los Angeles.”

But four months later, with USC and UCLA ranked 4-5, the Bruins (3-4) were suddenly ranked above USC in their first year in the Big Ten. After looking utterly hopeless offensively for two months, UCLA pulled off a strong secondary and suddenly improved ground game to win three in a row on this weekend’s trip to Washington.

A month ago this game looked like a mismatch for USC. But UCLA is improving and the rivalry game is never a sure thing. This can determine which team is bowl eligible and which is not.

November 30: Notre Dame

There’s a reason Riley does this hinted that historic Notre Dame rivalry would eventually be removed from USC’s schedule.

USC finds itself in a grim situation at the end of its regular season if it splits contests with Nebraska and UCLA; The 10th-seeded Fighting Irish would be a potential benefactor of a bowl game for the Trojans. After USC faced an ever-changing lineup of Big Ten defenses looking to beat USC in the trenches and limit possessions, this Notre Dame program brings an improved version of the exact same flavor: it currently ranks fifth in the FBS in rushing-yards per carry and play. Second in passes per game.