It's too soon to say whether Jayden Maiava is USC's quarterback of the future and not just the QB of the moment.

But through two starts with the Trojans, this much is now known about Maiava and his competitive make-up -- his internal confidence in himself and his rocket right arm never wavers, and no matter what has transpired in a sequence, quarter, half or game, there remains at all times the potential for some Maiava Magic.

Because USC's 19-13 win over rival UCLA on Saturday night at the Rose Bowl was not at all pretty, but in the end it sure was memorable as the Trojans (6-5, 4-5 Big Ten) rallied from a fourth quarter deficit and offensive malaise to do what they've struggled to do all season in decisively closing out a victory.

"We're battle-tested. We have, we've been through a lot of them. I told you all when we lost a few of these at some point this is going to become our advantage because we have been in so many we really don't know anything else honestly," coach Lincoln Riley said. "... More than anything, not for any other week or anything else that's happened, but just this week and what we had to overcome to go win this game, it feels tremendous. I'm really, really proud of how our guys responded."

RELATED: Everything Lincoln Riley said after USC's win over UCLA | Watch the Trojans' postgame celebration on the field Saturday night | WATCH: Postgame interviews with Riley and players

It was a frustrating slog for three and a half quarters with the Trojans defense doing everything it could to bail out a downright disappointing offensive performance and at least give USC a chance against a mediocre-at-best UCLA team (4-7, 3-6).

That it even got to that point, with the Trojans trailing 13-9 midway through the fourth quarter, demands scrutiny and critical analysis, especially as they squandered three opportunities inside the 5-yard line while coming away with field goals on each.

That USC couldn't find the end zone through three and a half quarters against a Bruins team that came into the night 83rd in the country in allowing 27.1 points per game ... well, it speaks for itself and furthers the mounting questions about Riley's play-calling and game management (more on that later).

But in one artful sequence, all of that got relegated to a secondary storyline in the moment Saturday night.

When USC took possession down 4 with 8:16 to play, it had mustered a meager 32 yards in the second half to that point.

Thanks to the Trojans' defense, though, the game was still there for the taking -- and in that moment Riley and Maiava both shook off all the frustration from the evening in a sublime two-play sequence to steal the game.

First, Riley dialed up a double-pass that he had only thrown into the gameplan late in the week, in which Maiava threw a backward pass to wide receiver Makai Lemon to give the look of a screen only for Lemon to then chuck a 39-yard completion downfield to Kyron Hudson all the way to the UCLA 4.

"Just felt like it was time where we maybe needed a spark and guys did a great job executing," Riley said. "We didn't put it in until later in the week, but glad we did -- guys executed it awesome. We protected well and Makai threw just a dart. Awesome play by Kyron too. It was a big-time play in that moment."

Said Hudson: "We hardly repped it, to be honest. I think it's just having trust in each other, Lincoln having trust in us to go out and execute. ... [Makai] threw it even better [in practice] -- that's the crazy thing. Makai, he's an amazing athlete, amazing player."

Which brings us back to Maiava's moment -- or magic, if you will. But first, to set it up ...

It had been an undistinguished game for the redshirt sophomore QB in his second Trojans start. He threw too high to tight end Lake McRee wide open in the back of the end zone on second-and-goal from the 2 in the first quarter -- though the referee helped box out McRee on the play -- contributing to USC's first failed opportunity inside the 5 as it settled for a short field goal.

Maiava was then unable to connect with either Hudson or Ja'Kobi Lane on fade passes on second- and third-and-goal from the 6 in the second quarter, as USC again settled for a field goal. (One can question the play-calling more than Maiava's passes, given that USC's receivers have simply proven to not be great at winning contested catches.)

Incredibly, the Trojans then had an almost identical sequence from the UCLA 5 at the end of the half as Maiava tried unsuccessful end zone fades to Hudson and Kyle Ford before yet another short Michael Lantz field goal for a 9-3 halftime lead drowned out by plenty of grumbling and frustration from the fan base -- which would only grow louder in the second half.

To start the third quarter, Maiava threw incomplete downfield on third-and-3 (again, more of a criticism of Riley's play-calling) and then couldn't connect with Lane on fourt down on a pass that the receiver should have caught but that also was thrown a bit too far to the outside.

That gave UCLA possession at its own 46 and led to a 7-play scoring drive capped by a 10-yard touchdown pass from Ethan Garbers to tight end Moliki Matavao as the Bruins took a 10-9 lead, only further amplifying discontent among the Cardinal and Gold faithful.

USC then did nothing on its next drive, followed by a Bruins field goal drive (a 29-yarder by Mateen Bhaghani) for a 13-9 lead late in the third quarter.

And on the Trojans' first possession of the fourth quarter, Maiava spun himself right into a 13-yard sack on third-and-long to force another punt and punctuate what had been a hard-to-watch performance from the offense to that point.

That's just the prelude, though.

USC answered with another defensive stop, as it did most of the night, when Easton Mascarenas-Arnold sacked Garbers on third down to force a punt, and soon came the perfectly-executed double-pass from Lemon to Hudson down to the Bruins 4.

On the next snap, Maiava faked the handoff, scanned the field to his right, felt the pressure coming off the edge from behind him and masterfully spun out of the sack, ran to his left to buy more time and then threw across his body on the move while placing a perfect pass in the back corner of the end zone just over a lunging defensive back and into the hands of Lane for the go-ahead touchdown and a 16-13 lead.

Quite simply, it was as impressive a pass as USC has completed all season.

"He made a great play. He's been able to make a few plays for us right now in terms of when things aren't exactly there, making some off-schedule plays," Riley said. "We did a good job protecting him on that play, giving him time, and he did a great job finding Ja'Kobi in the back."

Hudson had his own take on the moment.

"That's just Jayden being Jayden. I went to the sideline to just tell him, play him, be him. And he did that," Hudson said. "He know[s] who he is and just continue[s] to go out there and not let a play like that before (the sack on the last series) affect the next play. Just go out there knowing who he is and be Jayden."

USC then stuffed UCLA on fourth-and-1 with Mason Cobb getting credit for the stop on Garbers at the Bruins' 34, the Trojans turned that into a 30-yard Lantz field goal (his fourth of the game) to push the lead to 19-13, and the defense closed it out from there with another quick stop as Sam Greene pressured Garbers into a fourth-and-10 incompletion, broken up by DeCarlos Nicholson.

"I can't say enough about us defensively, how well we played to hold them down," Riley said. "Obviously, the big stops -- we were just pretty awesome defensively. We really were, really played at a high level. Excited to see our front continuing to get more active, really starting to affect the game more and more as some of those young guys really come on and play. Obviously, we had a lot of opportunities offensively to really extend the lead -- didn't play very good in the red zone but got the one there at the end obviously that counted. We were tough and resilient."

Riley emphasized that last point, noting that the Trojans were missing 27 players at practice last Tuesday due to illness.

"We had, I don't want to use the wrong word, I don't know if I want to say outbreak, but we had a lot of flu. Like a lot, a lot of flu," Riley said. "We practiced Tuesday with I think 27 players out, and it ran through over half the staff. Guys battled. We had a lot of guys that didn't feel very good even here at the end of the week. The preparation was a little disjointed because of that, but we said from the very beginning, we're going to get through this deal here at the beginning of the week and then there are no more excuses. We said [Friday] night in the team meeting, like, 'We wake up in the morning, nobody's sick -- period. Nobody's sick.' So we healed them all, baby."

Winning the last two weeks vs. Nebraska and UCLA teams with middling records doesn't heal the overall disappointment of this season, but it does give the Trojans a chance to turn the end of this season into a springboard into the offseason.

USC is now bowl-eligible and will get another game regardless of what happens next week against No. 5 Notre Dame (10-1) in the Coliseum.

"It's been a unique year, but we've tried to block out any of the good, any of the bad, any of the things that went our way, anything that didn't and just really focus on being in the moment here in the end," Riley said. "Sometimes you get wrapped up in all the outside and you miss the opportunities that are right in front of your face. These are unbelievable opportunities. These are life-long memories.

"It was important to this team here at the end certainly to get a chance to go play another game after next week, because honestly it's been a really fun team to coach. There's a great vibe in that locker room, and I think anybody that's watched us play, like, you see this team leaves it out there every single time. I mean, they have, so glad that we get to do a couple more together. We've got a good little streak going right now and we intend on keeping it going."

USC is in a better spot than it was two weeks ago sitting at 4-5, and that deserves recognition, but squeaking past this 4-7 UCLA team doesn't relieve any of the big-picture questions that exist.

Maiava is 2-0 as a starter and did well not to have any turnovers this week (though he did fumble once with USC recovering it), but he finished a pedestrian 19-of-35 passing for 221 yards and the lone TD pass. He might well be the Trojans' 2025 starter, but it remains too soon to answer that for sure.

Meanwhile, Riley's play-calling continues to come under scrutiny.

On those first three failed opportunities with first-and-goal from the UCLA 3, 4 and 4, respectively, Riley called three run plays and six unsuccessful passes. Granted, he did try to run it on first down in each case. But after Maiava gained only a yard on the first one, he resorted to two pass plays from the 2 instead of using three more downs to try to pound into the end zone on the ground.

Riley's stubborn refusal to commit to the run game in short yardage might be the biggest criticism fans and others have of his game management.

On the next two opportunities inside the 5, Quinten Joyner got stuffed for a loss of 2 on first down and Woody Marks for a loss of 1 on first down, making the decisions to pass from there more understandable.

"We didn't run the ball well down there. We had a number of busted assignments, which is kind of strange because we really were running the ball in the open field pretty well and just some pretty generic things for us we did not do well," Riley said. "And then in the throw game, we had an opportunity to make a lot of one-on-one plays and we didn't make enough of them. So obviously excited to get the win despite that, but we know that's going to have to get a lot better."

But that doesn't excuse the uninspired play-calling on the subsequent passes (aside from the well-designed play to get McRee open in the end zone the first time), relying on simple fades just because there is a one-on-one matchup regardless of the reality this USC's receivers don't excel at winning those kind of plays. Or the continued penchant for taking downfield shots on third-and-short, like Maiava did on third-and-3 on a failed deep shot to Kyle Ford early in the third quarter -- the one that ultimately led to a turnover on downs a play later and UCLA's subsequent lone touchdown.

Why not run the ball twice there in four-down territory? This offense simply hasn't been reliably successful when asking its receivers to make plays on 50-50 balls or catches in coverage -- but especially downfield.

And where is the creativity in maximizing Maiava's running ability? We saw it vs. Nebraska last week and it set up a critical first-down conversion on a well-executed option pitch, but the facet of the playbook was seemingly gone vs. UCLA.

Those questions remain, but they can be for another day.

Rivalry wins are always important no matter the state of the season, and the Trojans celebrated this one deservedly Saturday night, with Marks planting the USC flag near the UCLA logo on the field and players taking turns ringing the soon-to-be-repainted Victory Bell.

"It feels amazing. The only reason I did it because I saw a video," Marks said. "I was watching just to see about this rival[ry] -- I had never watched it. Just to see about this rival and the last thing that was on the video was them planting the flag and I didn't like that."

Said safety Akili Arnold, who was also playing in this crosstown rivalry for the first time: "It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. ... It was really cool. When I first pulled up here, when we were on the bus, I got kind of emotional because I was like, I'm from here, and the importance of this game, the rivalry has been going on for so long, so just being able to be part of it and contribute to a victory it meant a lot to me."

It does mean a lot.

But that doesn't mean the aforementioned questions and concerns don't remain all the same.