‘He’s different, man’: How Freddie Freeman fought his way to the NLCS
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES — They wore black T-shirts commemorating their return to the National League Championship Series and congregated in front of the Dodger Stadium pitcher’s mound Friday night, in prime position for a team photograph. But it quickly became clear that someone was missing. And so roughly 70 members of the 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers — players, coaches, trainers, doctors, clubbies — chanted for him in unison.
Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie!
Freddie Freeman emerged from an interview and hobbled over, lifting both arms to the sky before plopping down in front of them.
Fifteen days earlier, Freeman had suffered an ankle sprain that should have kept him out for as many as six weeks. He returned in a little more than one, somehow taking 12 at-bats and playing 29 defensive innings to help the Dodgers vanquish their hated rivals, the San Diego Padres, in the division series. Every prep step was the result of a laborious pregame routine that often ran the emotional gamut. Every swing qualified as a near-miracle.
“It’s hard to put into words, exactly, what it meant to see Freddie doing that,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “Almost gives you chills a little bit.”
Freeman turned himself into a modern-day iron man, playing in 99% of his games over the last five years, by mastering the aspects within his control. If he could hone in on a sound routine and never waver from it, Freeman thought, he’d minimize the unpredictability around him. The 2024 season — beset by fluky injuries and family trauma —broke down all of that. And yet Freeman continually found a way, most notably in October, while hobbling toward a .353 batting average through the first six games of these playoffs.
The Dodgers, who had spent an entire season navigating a litany of starting-pitcher injuries, knew they needed Freeman’s presence in their lineup. They later learned they needed to channel his mindset. Their past two seasons had followed the same disheartening script — win the NL West, secure a first-round bye, get trounced in the division series by an inferior division rival — and left them searching for an edge in these playoffs.
In many ways, Freeman’s indomitable will provided it.
“When you see him, you know he’s got broken bones all over the place and he can barely f—ing walk, and he’s out there making plays, stealing bases — they just don’t make them like him anymore,” Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux said. “He’s different, man. He’s a different breed. We all see him out there competing his ass off, even though he can barely walk, and it just makes us compete even harder.”
IT’S NOT IN Freeman’s nature to take time off. In an era when athletes’ exertion levels are closely monitored, often dictating rest days amid arduous baseball seasons, Freeman adheres to the mantra of playing every day — no matter how hurt he might be, how long his slump might endure. It was ingrained in him by his father, who watched his wife lose her life to melanoma and still summoned the strength to, in Freeman’s words, “show up to work every single day.”
“My job is to play baseball,” Freeman, 35, said earlier this season. “That’s how I was raised. That’s what my job is. You do it every single day, no matter the circumstances.”
This year, that philosophy was tested like never before.
It started on July 22, when Freeman’s 3-year-old son, Max, suddenly could not walk. Four days later, Freeman flew out of Houston and rushed to the emergency room at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, where he found Max on a ventilator. Max had been diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a condition in which the body’s immune system attacks its nerves, causing weakness, numbness and paralysis.
Freeman spent the ensuing nine days away from the team, during which his young son made a miraculous recovery after two rounds of immunotherapy. Max was discharged on Aug. 3 and began physical therapy the following day. Freeman returned to the team on Aug. 5 and was still noticeably emotional. He didn’t know how he’d handle coming back, but he had comfort.
“Knowing your son is OK,” Freeman said then, “that helps.”
Twelve days later, while fielding a grounder at first base in St. Louis, Freeman suffered a nondisplaced fracture of his right middle finger. He missed the next game, then went on a 3-for-23 stretch from Aug. 19 to 25, looking bad enough that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts convinced him to sit out a three-game series against the Baltimore Orioles. He returned on Aug. 30 and posted an .842 OPS over his next 25 games.
Then, on the night of Sept. 26 — in the same game that saw the Dodgers secure the NL West — he landed awkwardly on his right foot while attempting to avoid a tag by Padres first baseman Luis Arráez. Suddenly his season was in jeopardy at its most critical juncture.
“The last couple of months have been a lot,” Freeman said. “I think that would be kind of an understatement.”
AT FIRST, FREEMAN was optimistic. His right ankle had initially swelled “like a grapefruit” and necessitated a walking boot, but Freeman left the Dodgers’ regular-season home finale confident he’d be a full participant in the playoffs. His hope progressively increased over the ensuing week. And when he met with the media the afternoon before Game 1 of the NLDS, he deemed his ankle “good enough.”
Then something changed. Freeman, he said, “woke up feeling sore.” When he left his house the following morning, he looked at his 8-year-old son, Charlie, and told him, “I don’t know if Daddy’s going to be able to play today.”
When he arrived at the ballpark an hour later, his mood was noticeably somber.
“He was very negative,” Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernández said. “He felt really bad.”
Dodgers players were told there was a 1% chance Freeman would play in their postseason opener. But then he went through hours of treatment and started to feel better. He went into the batting cage to hit off a tee and take some flips, then went onto the field for light baserunning and defensive drills and became more hopeful. He still needed to see how his body would handle velocity, so he faced the Dodgers’ Trajekt Arc, a popular pitching simulator, and started to spray line drives. “I can do this,” he told himself.
At that point, barely two hours before the first pitch, he inserted himself into the lineup. Miguel Rojas, the veteran shortstop who was playing through a tear in his adductor muscle, called it “a borderline miracle.” When Freeman scorched a 109 mph single in his first at-bat, then a 101 mph single and a stolen base in his second, it became something more: inspiration, the type some of his teammates had been trying to harness since their championship-winning season from four years ago.
“We had a saying in 2020 when we won,” Muncy said after Game 1. “Guys were going out there saying, ‘I’m prepared to die out there today.’ Obviously it’s metaphorical, but that’s kind of that mentality we’re trying to take into this year. Nothing should hold us back out there. Freddie proved that tonight. And when you see him do stuff like that — he gets the hits, he makes plays, steals a bag — you’re kinda like, ‘OK, he’s ready for it.’ It definitely sends a message to the dugout that, ‘Hey, it doesn’t matter what your name is; it doesn’t matter who you are. You better be willing to do whatever it takes to play this game.’ It’s a big message.”
FREEMAN’S RECOVERY HASN’T followed a linear path. The more he plays, Freeman said, the more sore his right ankle becomes. For every game this month, he has arrived seven hours before the first pitch, gone through four to five hours of treatment, stepped onto the field for a series of high-knees and near-sprints, put on a glove for an assortment of defensive drills — fielding grounders, covering first base, pivoting and throwing to second — then disappeared into the tunnel to hit. Only then, after all those proverbial boxes have been checked, can he declare himself ready.
Then he does it all over again.
“Every day it seems to start at right where I was the previous day,” Freeman said. “It’s kind of hard to play through it because it never goes away. It kind of keeps getting worse.”
In addition to the sprain, Freeman said, he has developed a bone bruise on the inside part of his ankle “from the bones smacking each other” when he initially rolled it. In recent days, Roberts has also alluded to soreness manifesting in Freeman’s right side. Given the presence of Shohei Ohtani, taking a partial break by serving as the designated hitter isn’t an option. If Freeman wants to be in the lineup, he must play the field.
“It’s a battle,” he said. “It is what it is.”
Roberts’ pregame interview sessions have captured the volatility. “We’ll see” was Roberts’ response when asked about Freeman’s availability in Game 1. For Game 2, he said placing Freeman in the lineup was a “much easier” decision — only to remove him after five innings. Asked before Game 3 if Freeman was “still a go,” Roberts looked at his watch and said, “It’s a go for now.” A question about Freeman’s ankle before Game 4 prompted a chuckle from Roberts. “It’s just OK,” he said, before scratching him an hour later.
The uncertainty will follow for as long the Dodgers’ postseason run lasts. It might take an entire offseason before Freeman truly feels right again. Until then, every day will be a struggle. Every day will be a fight.
The atmosphere, the stakes, are fueling him.
“When I get here,” he said, “the energy level drives me to do everything I can.”
IT WAS DURING a team breakfast the morning before Game 4 that Freeman and the Dodgers’ training staff decided he would not be available with their season on the brink (placing him in the lineup and later scratching him was merely an act of “gamesmanship,” Freeman acknowledged). “We got you,” many of his teammates told him then.
Two days later, before the winner-take-all Game 5, Freeman returned the message.
“Don’t worry, guys,” Muncy recalled him saying. “I got you tonight.”
But the ankle was not cooperating, even after two days off. Freeman mimicked covering first base during pregame workouts, felt a twinge in his right ankle and nearly slammed a baseball onto the ground in frustration. A long conversation with Roberts, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and a couple of the team’s trainers prompted Freeman to go into Dodger Stadium’s left-field bullpen for more movement exercises. He ultimately found a placement with his foot that would allow him to cover first base without pain. Roughly 90 minutes before first pitch, Freeman walked into Roberts’ office. “I can go,” he said.
“I had a little smile on my face,” Roberts said, “because certainly with where he’s been, it’s been dicey.”
The sixth inning provided the biggest test. The Dodgers led by only a run with none on, one out and the red-hot Fernando Tatís Jr. on deck when Arráez hit a ball relatively far to Freeman’s right. Freeman whispered self-motivation. You gotta get there, he told himself. You gotta get there. Freeman did, stopping the grounder and throwing to Dodgers reliever Evan Phillips to secure an out. Seconds later, four of the Dodgers’ infielders gathered around Phillips near the mound. Freeman was the only one who stayed back.
“All of us were right there and we said, ‘Hey, this is for Freddie,'” Muncy recalled. “We had to give Freddie a breather.”
STOPPING OFF A dead sprint remains Freeman’s most difficult task. It showed in Sunday’s first inning, when he lumbered around third base to score the second run off Muncy’s base hit and collapsed into the arms of Mookie Betts, who hoped for merely a high-five.
“I’m only 170 pounds,” Betts said. “He’s a big dude. Luckily I lift weights.”
Freeman, with his right shoe wrapped in athletic tape like a defensive lineman’s, reached base three times in the Dodgers’ 9-0 win over the New York Mets in Game 1 of the NLCS. He drew a walk in the first inning, lined a base hit to right field in the third and added a run-scoring single to left field in the fourth, his sixth hit in 16 at-bats.
The Dodgers now face their first quick turnaround of these playoffs, a Sunday night Game 1 spilling into a Monday afternoon Game 2 against lefty Sean Manaea. After an off day Tuesday, the series shifts to New York for three straight games. Monday, then, would be the perfect time for the left-handed-hitting Freeman to sit. But that seemed to be the furthest thing from Roberts’ mind when he addressed the media after the game.
“My expectation,” Roberts said, “is that he’s going to be in there until I hear otherwise.”
Before the decisive game of the NLDS, Freeman personally thanked each member of the Dodgers’ training staff for getting him ready to play. After Game 1 on Sunday, he joked that he and Bernard Li, the physical therapist who has overseen his treatment, might just have to sleep in the Dodgers’ clubhouse to get him ready for a 1:08 p.m. PT start the following day.
All that time in the trainer’s room has made Freeman take up crossword puzzles, a common hobby for the Atlanta Braves‘ veteran players when he first arrived in the big leagues. For as much as his body might hurt these days, his mind is at ease. Max is walking again, continually progressing. Watching him go through his illness, Freeman said, “put everything in perspective for me.” In the grand scheme, he believes, whatever ails his ankle is nothing.
But the Dodgers are gaining strength from it.
“He’s sacrificing health to find a way to be on the field,” Roberts said. “And then when you sacrifice anything, it makes what you’re sacrificing for more important.”
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David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
It’s a new era for the College Football Playoff, with the field growing from four to 12 this season. That means three times as many programs will gain entry, but, beginning with Tuesday’s initial playoff rankings, there’s three times as much room for outrage, too.
Under the old rules, there was a simple line of demarcation that separated the elated from the angry: Who’s in?
Now, there are so many more reasons for nitpicking the committee’s decisions, from first-round byes to hosting a home game to whether your supposedly meaningful conference has been eclipsed by teams from the Group of 5.
And if the first rankings are any indication, it’s going to be a fun year for fury. There’s little logic to be taken from the initial top 25 beyond the committee’s clear love for the Big Ten. Penn State and Indiana make the top eight despite having only one win combined over an ESPN FPI top-40 team (Penn State over Iowa). That Ohio State checks in at No. 2 ahead of Georgia is the most inexplicable decision involving Georgia since Charlie Daniels suggested the devil lost that fiddle contest. Oregon is a reasonable No. 1, but the Ducks still came within a breath of losing to Boise State. Indeed, the Big Ten’s nonconference record against the Power 4 this season is 6-8, just a tick better than the ACC and well behind the SEC’s mark of 10-6.
But this is the fun of early November rankings. The committee is still finding its footing, figuring out what to prioritize and what to ignore, what’s signal and what’s noise. And that’s where the outrage really helps. It’s certainly not signal, but it can be a really loud noise.
This week’s Anger Index:
There are only two possible explanations for BYU’s treatment in this initial ranking. The first is that the committee members are too sleepy to watch games beyond the Central time zone. The second, and frankly, less rational one, is they simply didn’t do much homework.
It’s certainly possible the committee members are so enthralled with metrics such as the FPI (where BYU ranks 28th) or SP+ (22nd) that they’ve determined the Cougars’ actual record isn’t as important. This is incredibly foolish. The FPI and SP+ certainly have their value, but they’re probabilistic metrics, designed to gauge the likelihood of future success. They’re in no way a ranking of actual results. (That’s why USC is still No. 17 in the FPI, despite Lincoln Riley spending his days wistfully scrolling through old pictures of Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray and wondering if Oklahoma might want to get back together.)
To look at actual results paints a clear picture.
BYU (No. 4) has a better strength of record than Ohio State (No. 5), has played roughly the same quality schedule as Texas and has two wins against other teams ranked in the committee’s top 25 — as many as Ohio State, Texas, Penn State, Tennessee and Indiana (all ranked ahead of the Cougars) combined.
Indiana’s rags-to-riches story is wonderful, of course, but how can the committee compare what BYU has done (wins over SMU and Kansas State) against Indiana’s 103rd-ranked strength of schedule?
And this particular snub has significant effects. The difference between No. 8 and No. 9 is a home game in the first round, of course, though as a potential conference champion, that’s a moot point. But what if BYU loses a game — perhaps the Big 12 title game? That could not only doom the Cougars from getting a first-round bye, but it could quite likely set up a scenario in which the Big 12 is shuffled outside the top four conferences entirely, passed by upstart Boise State.
What’s clear from this first round of rankings is the committee absolutely loves the Big Ten — with four teams ranked ahead of a subjectively more accomplished BYU team — and the Big 12 is going to face some serious headwinds.
There’s a great, though little watched, TV show from the 2010s called “Rectify,” about a man who escapes death row after new evidence is found, only to be constantly harassed by the same system that fraudulently locked him away for 20 years. This is basically the story of SMU.
Let’s do a quick blind résumé here.
Team A: 8-1 record, No. 13 strength of record, two wins vs. ranked opponents, loss to SP+ No. 22, .578 opponent win percentage
Team B: 7-1 record, No. 15 strength of record, two wins vs. ranked opponents, loss to SP+ No. 91, .567 opponent win percentage
OK, you probably guessed Team A is SMU. The Mustangs have wins against Louisville and Pitt — both relatively emphatic — and their lone loss came to No. 9 BYU, which came before a quarterback change and included five red zone drives that amounted to only six total points.
Team B? That’s Notre Dame. The Irish have the worst loss by far (to Northern Illinois) of any team in the top 25, beat a common opponent by the same score (though, while SMU outgained Louisville by 20 yards, the Cardinals actually outgained Notre Dame by 115) and have played one fewer game.
The difference? SMU has the stigma — of the death penalty, of the upstart program new to the Power 4, of being unworthy. Notre Dame is the big brand, and that results in being ranked three spots higher and, if the playoff were held today, getting in, while the Mustangs are left out.
There are three two-loss SEC teams ranked ahead of Ole Miss, which seems to be a perfectly reasonable consensus if you look at the AP poll, too. But are we sure that’s so reasonable?
Two stats we like to look at to measure a team’s quality are success rate (how often does a team make a play that improves its odds of winning) and explosiveness. Measure the differentials in each between offense and defense, then plot those out, and you’ll get a pretty clear look of who’s truly dominant in college football this season.
Explosive Play differential vs. Successful Play differential
Auburn & Ark make no sense
Iowa & Iowa St are twinsies!
Is Ole Miss undervalued? pic.twitter.com/h87SKCdOtr— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) November 3, 2024
That outer band that features Penn State, Texas, Miami, Ohio State and Indiana (and notably, not Oregon, Alabama, LSU or Texas A&M)? That’s where Ole Miss lives.
The Rebels have two losses this season, each by three points, both in games they outgained the winning team. They lost to LSU on the road and, yes, somehow lost to a dismal Kentucky team. But hey, LSU lost to USC, too. It has been a weird season.
SP+ loves Ole Miss. The Rebels check in at No. 4 there, behind only Ohio State, Texas and Georgia.
The FPI agrees, ranking the Rebels fifth.
In ESPN’s game control metric, no team is better. Ole Miss has the third-best average in-game win percentage. That suggests a lot of strange twists, and bad luck was involved with its losses. These are things the committee should be evaluating when comparing like teams.
But how about this comparison?
Team A: 7-2, 23 points per game scoring margin vs. FBS, 1 loss to unranked, three wins vs. SP+ top 40
Team B: 7-2, 19 points per game scoring margin vs. FBS, 1 loss to unranked, three wins vs. SP+ top 40
Pretty similar, eh?
Of course, one of them is Ole Miss. That’s Team A this time around.
Team B is Alabama, ranked five spots higher.
Sure, this situation can be resolved quite easily this weekend with a win over Georgia, but Ole Miss starting at the back of the pack of SEC contenders seems like a miss by the committee, even if the math will change substantially before the next rankings are revealed.
Oh, thanks so much for the No. 25 nod, committee. All Army has done is win every game without trailing the entire season. Last season, when Liberty waltzed through its weakest-in-the-nation schedule, the committee had no objections to giving the Flames enough love to make a New Year’s Six bowl. But Army? At No. 25? Thirteen spots behind Boise State, the Knights’ competition for the Group of 5’s bid? Something tells us some spies from Air Force have infiltrated the committee’s room in some sort of Manchurian Candidate scenario.
Sure, the Seminoles are terrible now, and yes, the committee this season has plenty of new faces, but that doesn’t mean folks in Tallahassee have forgiven or forgotten what happened a year ago. Before the committee’s playoff snub, FSU had won 19 straight games and averaged 39 points. Since the snub, the Noles are 1-9 and haven’t scored 21 points in any game. Who’s to blame for this? Mike Norvell? The coaching staff? DJ Uiagalelei and the other struggling QBs? Well, sure. But it’s much easier to just blame the committee. Those folks killed Florida State’s playoff hopes and ended their run of success. The least they could do this year is rank them No. 25 just for fun.
Also angry: South Carolina (5-3, unranked), Vanderbilt (6-3, unranked), Georgia (7-1, No. 3), Louisville (6-3, No. 22), everyone who is not in the Big Ten.
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Eli Lederman, ESPN Staff Writer
Zelus Hicks, ESPN’s No. 1 safety in the 2026 class, plans to reclassify into the 2025 cycle and will enroll at Texas next year, the four-star Longhorns pledge told ESPN Tuesday afternoon.
Hicks is ESPN’s No. 18 prospect in the 2026 class and will likely enter the 2025 ESPN 300 as a top-50 prospect in the current cycle. The 6-foot-2, 190-pound defender from Carrollton, Georgia, has been committed to Texas since Sept. 12 when he picked the Longhorns over Georgia, Ohio State and USC. Hicks told ESPN he has not yet determined whether he will enroll at Texas in the spring or summer, but confirmed that his commitment to the Longhorns remains solid ahead of the start of the early signing period on Dec. 4.
“I’ve been debating this decision since my sophomore year after starting as a freshman and playing against the best talent in the nation,” Hicks told ESPN. “Many colleges have been telling me I should do it. With prayer and talks with my family I decided it was the best move to make.”
With Hicks’ reclassification into Texas’ 2025 class, the Longhorns’ count of ESPN 300 pledges in the current cycle now stands at 14. Hicks joins a defensive class headlined by No. 1 athlete Jonah Williams — ESPN’s No. 8 prospect is expected to play safety at Texas — that also includes commitments from four-star defensive ends Lance Jackson (No. 70 in the ESPN 300) and Smith Orogbo (No. 107), outside linebacker Elijah Barnes (No. 91) and former Florida State defensive tackle pledge Myron Charles (No. 178).
Upon Hicks’ move, the Longhorns approach the early signing period with six top-100 pledges headed to Austin in a class that currently ranks sixth in ESPN’s rankings for the cycle.
Hicks was the second-ranked member of Texas’ 2026 class prior to his reclassification. A physical, downhill defensive back, Hicks earned a starting role in his freshman season at Georgia’s Parkview High School and made 95 tackles across his freshman and sophomore seasons. Hicks transferred to Atlanta-metro powerhouse Carrollton High School ahead of his junior year this fall, teaming up with five-star 2025 quarterback prospect Julian Lewis and fellow ESPN Junior 300 prospects Dorian Barney, Jonaz Walton, Ryan Mosley and Zykie Helton.
Carrollton begins the state playoffs this month as the top-ranked team in Georgia’s 6A classification.
Recruited to Texas by Longhorns safeties coach Blake Gideon, Hicks projects as a high-upside prospect who may require time to develop after skipping his senior year of high school. However, Hicks possesses a combination of size and speed that will make him a versatile option for defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski once Hicks finds his footing at the next level.
“I’m excited about being coached by coach Gideon and the rest of the Texas staff,” Hicks said.
Following Hicks’ move, Texas now holds pledges from two prospects in the 2026 class. Five-star Dia Bell has been the Longhorns’ top 2026 commit since he picked Texas on June 17. ESPN’s No. 2 pocket passer and No. 7 prospect in 2026, Bell will arrive on campus alongside four-star wide receiver commit Chris Stewart, No. 218 in the ESPN Junior 300.
The fifth-ranked Longhorns host Florida on Saturday at noon ET on ABC.
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Pete Thamel
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Paolo Uggetti
USC is making a change at quarterback, replacing starter Miller Moss with UNLV transfer Jayden Maiava, head coach Lincoln Riley confirmed Tuesday.
After the Trojans lost four of their past five games and fell to 4-5 on the season, coach Lincoln Riley will opt to give the sophomore starting reps when they host Nebraska on Nov. 16. USC is currently on its second bye week of the season.
“When we went back and looked at it, we felt like it was in the best interest of the team to give Jayden a chance here,” Riley said after Tuesday’s practice. “This is not a reflection of anything more than we have another good player in the room and we feel like he gives us a good opportunity. … It’s really that simple.”
Moss began the season by leading the Trojans to a signature victory over LSU in Las Vegas, but he has regressed over the past few games.
Playing behind a shaky offensive line, Moss has made crucial mistakes of his own. In his past five games, the junior has thrown seven interceptions. Against Washington on Saturday, Moss threw three costly picks in a 26-21 loss.
In nine games as starter, Moss has thrown for 2,555 yards with 18 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
“You could literally not change one thing that Miller’s done and we could be sitting here with a really, really good record right now,” Riley said. USC has notably lost five fourth-quarter leads this season. “Miller has done a very good job. He’s been a really good leader for this team. He’s been loyal to this program. He has worked hard, and he has done a lot of really good things on the football field.”
Maiava transferred to USC this offseason after a strong freshman campaign at UNLV during which he threw for 3,085 yards and 17 touchdowns. He completed 63.5% of his passes and added three rushing touchdowns.
“He’s improved throughout the year. He improved in camp. And he’s continued to improve,” Riley said. “It’s not easy being the backup, and I felt like he’s handled it that well. He’s a talented kid. In these instances, it’s tough. It’s like you’ve got two children, especially at that position, and only one of them is going to be out there. But we’re obviously excited for Jayden to get this opportunity.”
Though Riley said he is not expecting the switch to unlock a different aspect of the Trojans’ offense or add something that’s missing, Maiava is a more mobile option under center. In limited appearances this season, Maiava has showcased his ability to escape the pocket and make plays on the run. He has made eight completions for 66 yards and ran the ball three times for 27 yards, including a touchdown.
After backing up Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams for two seasons, Moss’ first start came in the 2023 Holiday Bowl, when he threw for a bowl-record six touchdowns and staked his claim to be the starter in 2024. Though the quarterback competition between Maiava and Moss extended into fall camp, Riley was adamant throughout team practices that Moss was ahead.
Despite four losses in the past five games, Riley had remained outwardly steadfast in his confidence in Moss as the starter. At one point ahead of USC’s matchup against Rutgers two weeks ago, Riley said Moss was “100%” the starter going forward.
“He’s just got to be ready for the next opportunity, you never know how that’s going to play out,” Riley said of Moss. “The tough thing is you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but if I know Miller he’ll stay in a really positive mindset. He’ll come and go to work for this team and he’ll be ready for his next opportunity no matter where it is, and we’re going to continue to push and coach him to help him.”
When asked Tuesday whether the quarterback change was made with the future in mind — Moss has one year of eligibility left, and Maiava is in only his second season — Riley balked at the notion.
“You only get so many moments with this team, and so I’ve never tried to make decisions … I’m not saying you don’t think about the future, because of course we do,” Riley said. “But I think I’m in the wrong if I’m only looking at it and so this is not a decision with the future in mind.”
USC’s loss at Washington this past week puts it in danger of not securing a bowl berth. With three games remaining, the Trojans hope Maiava can provide a much-needed spark.
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