Soon after Lincoln Riley was hired as USC's head football coach at the end of the 2021 season, he already had people in his ear suggesting to him that Miller Moss -- the one quarterback who would be left on the roster he was inheriting -- wasn't going to be a fit for him.

"He had a lot of people that doubted him. Even people told me coming in they doubted him or didn't know if he had what it took, blah, blah, blah," Riley recalled.

Riley was going to make his own evaluation, though, and one of the first things that struck him was how very clearly important it was to Moss to be one day be the starting quarterback at USC.

Not a starting quarterback -- the USC starting quarterback, at the school and program he'd grown up rooting for and caring about from a young age.

"I liked him a lot from the beginning," Riley said. "I could tell he was a smart kid. I could tell 'SC meant a lot to him. I think given his previous time here, I think he was interested if there was going to be a similar belief in him that he could do it here. Was he going to get the opportunity? He was kind of trying to figure that out, which I understand. I told him from the beginning, even once we had some movement in the room and Caleb [Williams] decided to come here, I told him he would always get an opportunity for reps, as long as he commanded them. And he told me as long as that was the case, he’d fight it out until he didn’t have one."

Moss has fought it out until he left Riley no choice but to give him what he's always wanted, and on Sunday afternoon against No. 13-ranked LSU in Las Vegas the redshirt junior opens the season as No. 23 USC's unquestioned starting QB and team leader.

It's been quite a journey to this point, as Trojans fans well know.

"Well, it hasn't been boring," his mother Emily Kovner Moss joked over the phone last month. "... There have definitely been moments that have broken my heart, but that is life and for better or worse that is when you learn the most. I think he's learned so much too. I'm just so incredibly proud of him, and I really admire the man he is becoming."

So do his USC teammates and coaches -- that much is clear.

Any doubts that have existed about Moss' potential on the outside have been offset tenfold by the confidence he's earned from everyone on the inside of the Trojans football program.

"You can see it all the time," wide receiver Duce Robinson said last week. "... He's the guy that everyone rallies around, and the entire team rallies around him -- it's not just the offense that rallies around him."

Said wideout Ja'Kobi Lane: "He didn't let anything get in the way of his competitive spirit because he's one of those crazy competitors and he realizes what he's capable of, and he's a real hungry dude that just can't wait to show what he's capable of."

Most important of all, though, is how Moss has won over Riley these last two-plus years, which is ultimately why he's now in this position -- why he's the one taking the reins of one of college football's most productive offenses from Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 overall NFL draft pick Caleb Williams, rather than it being a high-profile transfer from the now-annual winter QB carousel.

"I just think the guy, he's got a lot of alpha in him and he's got a lot of want-to and substance," Riley said. "I just see how tirelessly he works and be incredibly selfless along the way, and he's just turned himself into one of the most respected people in our program. How he's embraced every single challenge that's come his way, I've been really impressed with."

As pivotal as Moss' indelible Holiday Bowl performance last December was to earning him the opportunity now in front of him this season, he doesn't want to be remembered for that and seems he'd almost prefer to move on entirely from talking about it.

"Obviously, there's been a lot of talk about that game, but I don't want it to serve as 'Oh, this was the biggest moment in my career.' I want it to be a positive start to something much, much bigger," Moss said.

But until that happens -- or however the next chapters of his story unfold -- it's hard not to keep coming back to that December evening in San Diego as Moss completed 23 of 33 passes for 372 yards, 6 touchdowns and 1 interception in his first collegiate start, leading the Trojans to a win over Louisville and a sorely-needed reset that has become the foundation for this 2024 team in many ways.

It was the real life embodiment of every classic sports cliche or movie trope -- the under-the-radar quarterback who finally gets his shot with nothing promised beyond that moment and turns in a starring performance beyond any reasonable expectation.

"It's so rare in life that things turn out the way they ought to and the way you hope," Emily Kovner Moss said, thinking back on it. "... It was just purely magical and joyful. I don't remember taking such pleasure in an event maybe ever."

For his part, Moss has only ever talked about that night in a business-like manner -- both before, when it was clear it would likely determine whether everything he had been working for at USC would ever come to fruition, and since.