For those who might have questioned the quarterback change from Miller Moss to Jayden Maiava, though there didn't seem to be much pushback from the fan base on that front, USC's 28-20 win over Nebraska last weekend showed why it was the right move.

Unlike so many weeks of this season, the offense made sense -- from Lincoln Riley's play-calling to the big plays that ensued.

Maiava was far from perfect -- we'll get into that -- but he provided a needed jolt to a sinking season and kept the Trojans (5-5, 3-5 Big Ten) on track for potential bowl eligibility.

In the weekly First-and-10, we break down what Maiava's first USC start revealed about him, about Riley's (stubborn) preferences, we toast Woody Marks' 1,000-yard rushing season, a breakthrough for wide receiver Duce Robinson, needed praise for the offensive line and defense, shoutouts to the secondary and punter Eddie Czaplicki and spotlight the curious case of the field goal unit.

As the USC offense failed to meet the expectations of a Lincoln Riley unit for much of the season -- the Trojans rank 31st in total offense (438.1 yards per game) and 50th in scoring (30.3 points per game) -- the question of why has been a significant one. Blame has been levied at pretty much every party possible, from the play-caller himself to the offensive line, the receivers and, of course, the quarterback. I think the truth, as with most things, is some mix of all those factors.

Foremost among them, at least in my opinion, was the disconnect between the offense Lincoln Riley wanted to run and the offense that Miller Moss was best suited for. From the early parts of this season, we’ve been clear on Moss’ strengths and weaknesses. Though his arm talent was limited and his mobility unspectacular, at his best he made quick, decisive reads, found the open man and delivered a hyper-accurate football with reliability beneath 25 yards of depth. What that amounts to is a player capable of being highly efficient and productive at the collegiate level but one that needs to operate within the bounds of a system that accentuates his strengths and doesn’t ask him to work beyond his boundaries.

Given the sustained proficiency of the Trojans run game, the best offense to run with Moss at the helm would have likely been a rushing-focused attack that forced the defense to load the box, creating opportunities for the quarterback to pick the defense apart in the play-action game over the middle of the field, where he excels most. I personally expected that Riley, offensive savant that he’s supposed to be, would figure out the limitations of his quarterback and quickly restructure his offense in a way that would minimize those and best accentuate his skills. All offseason, I made my predictions with that assumption in mind, assumptions that I maintained into the early part of the season.

However, the course of nine games with Moss at the helm showed us decisively that Riley is either unable or unwilling to change his philosophical approach for anybody. Riley wants his offense to emanate from and flow through his quarterback. When Moss was running the show, Riley wanted him to be the superstar around which the rest of the offensive orbited, just as all his predecessors had been. As a result, Moss was asked to carry a tremendous share of the offensive burden, frequently throwing around 40 times or even 50 times per game. Explosiveness in the passing game has always been a key component of Riley’s offenses, and given Moss’ difficulties with the deep ball, the coach tried to manufacture downfield explosives with the one deep throw he felt his QB could hit consistently -- the sideline fade route. Moss was asked to throw that look multiple times per game over the course of the season, and despite often getting the right matchup, he rarely connected.

Elsewhere, to make up for his lack of rushing production, Riley seemed to ramp up the quick passing game at the line of scrimmage to create an extension of the run game still run through Moss' arm. Hit often in the early season before the offensive line made its leap, saddled with inconsistent receiver play and asked to essentially shoulder the weight of the entire offense, Moss’ play deteriorated over the course of the fall, culminating in his eventual benching. More than anything, I feel as though this was the result of Riley trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, unwavering in his determination that he could find a way to make things work his way. His insistence on having the offense flow through the quarterback rather than the run game probably cost Moss the opportunity to succeed and, ultimately, USC’s entire season.

The reason I’m writing this all now is because of what we saw against Nebraska with Jayden Maiava at QB -- that was far more the Lincoln Riley offense that we’re accustomed to seeing and the one he really wants to run. It’s good to see things work more as intended, and we’ll discuss all of that in the next segment. Ultimately, however, I’m disappointed in the lack of adaptability we saw from Riley this season. This offense even with Moss at the helm should have been capable of much more, and an offensive mind of Riley’s caliber should have been flexible enough to unlock it.

With all of that in mind, let’s discuss the USC offense we saw on the field against Nebraska. This was Riley’s best performance of the season as a play-caller, one in which his offense flowed smoothly between the run and the pass and consistently found ways to keep the sticks moving. Even with two huge turnovers that were wholly the fault of the quarterback, Riley’s offense delivered against one of the better defensive units nationally.

Nebraska’s record makes it easy to downplay its ability, but let’s not undersell how good this defense has been. Coming into last weekend the Huskers were ranked as a top-20 scoring defense that excelled against the run in particular, giving up just 102.6 yards per game on the ground, good for 13th-best nationally. In a huge matchup on the road in Columbus a few weeks ago, the Huskers held Ohio State (presently the No. 2 team in the country) to just 21 points in their close-fought 21-17 defeat. Despite featuring what many would consider the nation’s best 1-2 punch at running back, the Buckeyes managed just 54 yards on 20 carries by their backs that day as they squeaked their way to a narrow victory at home.

Fast forward to last Saturday, when Riley’s Trojans were largely able to have their way with the Nebraska defense to the tune of 441 total yards and 4 touchdowns on 67 plays. From a play-calling perspective, Riley put his offense in the best position possible to break down the Huskers scheme over the course of the day. He leaned on the passing game early to get Maiava into a groove and to get Nebraska to open up the box. Once Maiava got comfortable, Riley leaned into the rushing attack, allowing Woody Marks and Quinten Joyner to become the engine of the offense through the middle portion of the game. Critically, Riley was able to integrate Maiava himself into the run game to great effect, giving the quarterback a number of designed carries and keeper options.

The threat of Maiava as a runner worked wonders to open up the rest of Riley’s gameplan, forcing Nebraska to often designate an extra man to him in the running game and making the defense more conservative in the pass rush as it accounted for the quarterback scramble. That resulted in more viability for the bulk of Riley’s play calls, manifesting in the form of cleaner running lanes and bigger openings in the pass game. To his credit, Riley was in his creative bag throughout this game, seemingly hitting the right notes at the right moments to knock the Nebraska defense off balance.

His play designs on some of USC’s running plays were masterful, successfully manipulating Nebraska’s alignments and tendencies to engineer good looks Woody Marks. Take a look at this play, where Riley uses unnaturally wide splits between the center and left guard to mirror the natural bubble in Nebraska’s front.

The linebacker naturally gets tricked into rushing forward to fill that gap, only to be cleaned out by the down-blocking right guard. The pulling right tackle then leads the way through the enormous hole, setting Marks up for an explosive gain before he’s even received the handoff.

Overall, Riley did well to design variability into the gameplan for this contest. He was able to build a lot of offense upon his early use of the Zachariah Branch jet-pass, allowing him to reuse the motion over the course of the game to get second level defenders flowing in the wrong direction on both runs and play-action passes. In the first half, he used more 12 personnel (two tight ends) than the Trojans had all year, setting up better run blocking and creating for more convincing run fakes on play-action for Maiava to manipulate.

Speaking of, Riley called what may have ended up his most perfectly-executed play-action design of the season on what ended up a 48-yard receiving touchdown for Duce Robinson. The run fake to an already-hot Marks sucked in the linebackers over the middle and Branch pulled away his cornerback and the lone safety with the threat of his speed on an aggressive post route, leaving Robinson with a degree of separation downfield that we just haven’t seen all that much of this season.

Possessing just a one-point lead and the ball with over 10 minutes to play, Riley engineered a masterful game-clinching drive to cement the Trojans’ lead, bleeding 7:39 off the clock as the offense marched 84 yards on 13 plays en route to the eventual touchdown. Critically, Riley threw the ball on just three of those plays, choosing to instead keep it on the ground in the hands of Marks, Joyner and Maiava after they’d been productive in the run game all night. On a crucial fourth-and-1 near midfield, the head coach nailed the most important play call of the night, calling for a load-option play to the left side. The threat of Maiava and Marks as rushers on the edge proved too much for Nebraska to handle, and Maiava got the pitch to Marks in time for the runner to rip off 34 yards.

With Maiava in the fold, it seems clear that Riley was much more comfortable calling plays. The offense all year had only once looked this good against a far inferior Rutgers defense, and it could easily be argued that the group was more dynamic in this outing. The sample size is now big enough for us to say conclusively that Riley likes to run his offense through the quarterback no matter what; as long as that’s the case, it’ll always behoove him to have a guy capable of winning deep and contributing to the run game under center. With Maiava now at the controls, Riley will have exactly that to work with. What’s left to see now is whether or not Riley can build on this performance and keep his offense looking this comfortable in the two weeks to come.

All things considered, Maiava’s debut as the Trojans’ starting quarterback went more or less exactly as I imagined. In last week’s Roundtable, I predicted that he’d throw for about 260 yards, gain about 35 rushing yards, score 3 total touchdowns and turn it over twice. Maiava’s real stat line turned out to be 259 passing yards, 30 rushing yards (omitting sack yardage), 3 touchdowns and 2 turnovers. The list of pros and cons lined up rather neatly with what was expected, as his remarkable arm talent and prowess as a runner helped take the Trojans to victory despite the setbacks generated by his spotty decision-making and looseness with the football.

Maiava looked very shaky to start the day, locking into his reads early and seemingly struggling to read the field. On just his second drive of the game, the quarterback threw one of the most ill-advised throws you’re ever likely to see, heaving the ball roughly in the area of two well-covered receivers deep down the sideline without so much as an idea of where an opening might be. Predictably, the ball was picked off and eventually run back all the way for a pick-6. It was a highly inauspicious start, one that quickly demonstrated all the deficiencies in Maiava’s game and threatened to send things unraveling as they barely got started.

At quarterback above all positions, however, the ability to respond to a bad play is everything. Maiava appeared totally unfazed when he returned to the field, eager as ever to make plays. Facing a quick third-and-7, the redshirt sophomore made a huge play in the face of pressure to deliver an out route to Kyle Ford perfectly on the money, placing the ball high and outside where only the big receiver could pluck it from the air.