**This is the second installment of our USC Next Up feature series, which will be running all week, profiling USC's 2021 freshmen. All interviews with the players were conducted before they arrived on campus and enrolled at USC. This Moss interview took place in late December and has been held for inclusion in this series.**

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Miller Moss laughs while answering the question. It's late December, a couple weeks after the early signing period, a couple weeks removed from the end of all the speculation and mounting tension within the fan base -- not to mention the program -- as to how USC's 2021 QB recruiting class would ultimately shake out.

Longtime commit Jake Garcia had been the subject of buzz for months as to whether he would end up flipping to Miami, which he ultimately did. Meanwhile, USC had made waves in recruiting circles in October by starting to pursue quarterback Jaxson Dart out of Utah despite having two four-star QBs already committed at the time in Garcia and Moss. And then the focus ultimately shifted to the tight recruiting battle for Dart with UCLA that played out until mid December before ending in the Trojans' favor.

All the while, Moss was the constant, the eye of the storm.

He had announced his Trojans commitment on June 1, 2020, immediately went to work as a recruiter to build up the class around him and never seemed the least bit fazed by anything else that was swirling around USC's complicated QB recruiting tango, or what it would mean for him once he got to campus.

It's as fitting a place as any to start his story because there are several components therein that help explain Moss' quarterback makeup and his journey here.

So joined by his parents back in December for an in-depth interview with TrojanSports.com before moving to campus, Moss reflected on everything from his early attachment to USC football that ultimately made this decision seem destined, his embrace of competition and challenges that had helped shape him, the indomitable inner confidence he feels defines him and, yes, what it was like being the least talked-about QB recruit for the Trojans by simple virtue of how uneventful the final six-plus months of his recruitment had been.

"It was great," he says, interrupting himself with a laugh. "I think there are some families or quarterback camps or whatever you want to call it that just seek attention for the sake of seeking attention, and I don't think that's ever been me. I've gotten my share of attention, but that was never the goal. I was so happy when I committed because I was like, I don't have to worry about this kind of circus anymore in recruiting. Not that I wasn't super lucky to be in that situation, but it can get kind of crazy. ...

"I was totally fine. Like, you guys don't have to write about me, it was totally fine."

RELATED: USC Next Up: Detailing QB Jaxson Dart's meteoric rise over the last year

All the attention paid to the other half of USC's 2021 QB equation served to bely the fact that the Trojans had reeled in the No. 7-ranked pro-style QB in the country relatively early in the recruiting cycle and that he wasn't any risk to budge off that commitment.

Externally, at least. Within the program, the Trojans knew they had to land two quarterbacks this class with where the depth chart stood, and being able to lock in Moss as a sturdy foundation to that was perhaps essential to actually pulling it off. Within the program, there was full appreciation for what his pledge meant.

"The great thing about Miller the whole time, he said, 'Coach, I don't care who you sign, I'm a Trojan -- I'll compete with anyone.' That's the kind of guy you want," offensive coordinator Graham Harrell said. "We felt really strong that regardless of what happens we're going to get a great quarterback in Miller, and it was a deal where we knew we had to sign multiple quarterbacks because of the numbers in the room."

It helped in other ways as well, of course, as Moss went all-in on trying to build up the recruiting class around him, including organizing the memorable October brunch in Malibu with five-star defensive end Korey Foreman, four-star tight end Michael Trigg (visiting all the way from Florida) and four-star cornerback Ceyair Wright, all of whom would eventually sign with the Trojans.

"I think it only strengthened my relationship with the staff," Moss says, continuing his answer of what it meant to be locked in with the program for so long. "I think we have a mutual respect there in that they were solid with me and I was solid with them. I think it allowed me to recruit better and recruit from a better platform in that guys who I was recruiting knew I was 100 percent solid with USC, so there was no doubt. I think that helped with a ton of guys.

"I think that helped with Trigg. I think that went a long way with Korey. I remember Korey early on sending me a text saying, 'Don't decommit on me, bro.' Kyron [Ware-Hudson], that was huge with. Kyron was my closest friend at Mater Dei in the 10 days that I practiced there, but we were talking even back then. I think that went a long way with a number of relationships at USC."

That Moss was a fulcrum for rallying USC's recruiting class together was no surprise to anyone who followed his rise in the Southern California football ranks. Nor should it be that he was undaunted in embracing an immediate QB competition with another highly-rated four-star QB (Dart and Moss ended up No. 106 and No. 108 on the overall Rivals rankings, respectively.)

Moss once again seems a little under the radar with Dart generating a lot of external buzz coming of spring practice back in April and now heading into fall camp starting Friday, but that probably doesn't faze him either.

"It wasn't [ever] about external approval for me," Moss says back in December in a comment that seems especially apropos now. "I always held myself in that regard regardless of kind of what was said, what was written or who was getting offered. ... I think it's really important for me to just maintain my own sense of myself as a quarterback. As you know, there's always going to be a shiny new toy that people are going to write about. That [confidence] was never going to come from anything external -- it was always a standard that I held myself to."

There's a common theme with highly-rated four-star prospects that consistently reappears -- normally their athletic potential reveals itself early.

For Moss, that manifested in a couple very significant and pivotal ways.

First, a humorous story, and it's best to just let the family tell it ...

Moss' first coach in sports was his father Eric Moss, but that was a relatively short-lived experiment.

"Two years," the younger Moss recalls. "He got banned for running the score up."

Says Eric: "They should have banned him."

"No, it's true, it was every sport," Miller says, continuing the story. "But it was honestly one of the best things that happened to me because we would play soccer and my dad would put me at center forward and say 'Go score,' and I'd score seven goals or something and the other teams -- I don't know if you know anything about Santa Monica politics -- but the other teams' moms would come up to my dad after the game and get really upset because Timmy was crying because he lost by eight goals or something.

"So that was honestly one of the best things that happened because eventually we had to move on from playing in this neighborhood and it led me to be able to play against a lot better competition."

"That's a super important point," Eric adds. "... I think in terms of his personal growth, the kind of friendships he made that are deep friendships that are going to last a hell of a long time, conceivably past all of this, getting out of this area was probably the one thing that I think was the best for him and the best for all of us."

So at 9 years old, Moss was commuting four days a week to Carson for practices, first in basketball, which the family initially thought might end up being his path.

As Moss sees it, the benefits were two-fold -- he was playing against significantly better competition in whatever sport it was at the time, but he was also now in a much more diverse setting.

"It also helped me in terms of being able to have relationships with people across the locker room. I think if you look going from a school like Loyola to a school like Alemany, not just in terms of location, I was able to go into both locker rooms equally comfortable. I think that was huge, especially playing the position that I play," he says. "So that was one of the best things I ever did and that my parents ever did for me in making that sacrifice to take me down there since I was in fifth grade."

Meanwhile, the other way that Moss' early pronounced athletic attributes helped set him on his path came more serendipitously.

As the family tells it, he was just a natural passer early, and the way the ball came out of his hand at a young age often caught people by surprise.

"I think people can write, people can talk, people can sing, people can dance, and among other things he can probably do some of those things too, but it's interesting he sort of came out throwing the ball," Eric Moss says.

One day when he was 7 years old, Miller was outside of his father's office, tossing the ball around in a parking lot when one of Eric's architectural clients, who had kids playing at Oaks Christian School, took notice.

Indirectly, that would set up a pivotal move down the road as Moss later transferred from Loyola HS to Bishop Alemany after his freshman season.

"It is a sort of odd story," Eric says. "Miller's throwing the ball around, the guy takes one look and it's another sort of these reactions, 'How did you learn how to do that?' His kids were at Oaks so he suggested we go out and see [head coach] Bill Redell and Casey Clausen, who was the offensive coach. We went out and Miller threw the ball with Casey ...

"At that point, Jimmy [Clausen] was [renowned SoCal QB coach] Steve Clarkson's guy," Miller says, taking over the story. "I threw the ball with Casey after an Oaks Christian practice and he was like, 'You're young, you're 7 years old, but you've got to go see Steve.' So I ended up going and throwing for Steve and then Steve and I ended up working together for seven years after that. But that was how the relationship with Casey was established. So then six or seven years later, the Loyola thing, the program is kind of falling apart. Marvin Sanders, who was the head coach, ended up taking a college defensive job [at Coastal Carolina] and they were kind of in between head coaches. It was kind of a mess, the offensive coordinator went to Texas, it was just kind of crazy.

"So we were like, this isn't really working out. ... We looked at Chaminade, Oaks Christian, and then my dad was like, 'I still have Casey's number. He's leaving Calabasas to take the Alemany job. I'll just reach out to him and see if we hear anything back.' Because at that point I wasn't established as a quarterback in Southern California."

They heard back. Moss didn't know much about Alemany and didn't know anybody there, but he liked Casey Clausen, who had been a star quarterback at Tennessee back in the early 2000s before returning home to Southern California to build a strong coaching resume, first as the long-time offensive coordinator at Oaks Christian and then as head coach at Calabasas before taking the Bishop Alemany job in 2018.

"I just remember leaving that meeting and being like, 'Mom, I have to come here. This is too good of an opportunity to pass up,'" Moss recalls.

That was based mostly on his belief that he would develop and thrive under the coaching of Clausen and his brother Rick Clausen, a former college QB at LSU and Tennessee and the OC and QBs coach at Alemany. Again, while Moss had played his freshman year at Loyola HS, he didn't yet have the stature he would eventually build as a top QB prospect. Initially, he'd be one of five QBs competing for the job at Alemany.

"There were other quarterbacks, so nobody said, 'You come, you get this.' ... Miller again was willing to do that," Eric Moss says.

Adds Emily Kovner Moss, Miller's mother: "Looking at Chaminade and [especially] Oaks, it was a much more established team at that time. ... In a way it was a safer bet. What I really admired in Miller's decision was that we're going to go to this unproven team with brand new coaches, there's going to be a period of growth and adjustment, the team had been fairly miserable the year before and the year before that -- let's go have fun and let's build something."

Interestingly, one of the first kids Moss met at Bishop Alemany was Jaylin Smith, who would become one of his best friends and now a teammate at USC.

"I didn't know a single kid in the school, and I remember the first day Jaylin comes up to me and he's like, 'What's up man? My name's Jaylin. You're going to love me.' I was like, all right,'" Moss says, laughing.

Even though the year ahead would be full of challenges and learning experiences, somehow everything felt right and meant to be.

"One of the interesting things about it is the role of accident in this," Eric Moss says. "... If he's not out in front in a parking lot throwing a football totally by accident maybe this never happens."

Casey Clausen doesn't mince words.

"He did develop our program. He was the one," Clausen said this week of Moss, reflecting back on their time together. "We can't run a program regardless of what level we're at without a quarterback. ... He was the guy that helped put our program on the map. He was the next guy in line to play Division I ball that my brother Rick and I have coached and developed. [I] couldn't thank him and his family enough for what they did for Alemany."

Bishop Alemany had gone 3-7 each of the two prior seasons, and Clausen would almost totally remake the roster. As Moss recalls, more than 30 players left the program before that 2018 season, leaving the team with maybe three seniors, something like 10 juniors and the rest sophomores like Moss and Smith or freshmen.

First, as Clausen said, he had to find his quarterback.

"We had five guys when we first got there and they slowly kind of dwindled and went to other schools. Then it was [Moss] and another kid, and that kid ultimately ended up leaving. ... Ran 'em all off," he said, laughing. "That's the way it works these days with quarterbacks, I guess."

Alemany would go 7-5 that year and win a playoff game over Cathedral, but not without a heavy dose of growing pains along the way -- including a 56-14 midseason loss to none other than Oaks Christian, which had the likes of future Oregon DE Kayvon Thibodeaux, future Michigan and now UCLA RB Zach Charbonnet and other established D1 prospects.

Overall, Moss would pass for 2,714 yards, 19 touchdowns and 14 interceptions that season, per MaxPreps.

"He got baptized, which in a way was a good thing," Clausen said. "Most guys, high school's pretty simple, pretty easy for them, the pocket's pretty much clean, or a guy's taking over for the next guy going on. He was the first guy. He was the one that helped build our program to where it is today, so that first year we were not very good and he obviously got hit a lot and sacked a lot and beat up. We got blown out a few games. But I think the adversity was something that I think will help him as he goes on his journey, starting this Friday with camp."

All the while, Clausen was pushing Moss to become a leader in the locker room. That's not a role he had been able to take on at Loyola as a freshman. He says he felt it's a role he would always have to earn again anew wherever he went, and he quickly did so at Alemany.

"It wasn't really one that I was necessarily comfortable with when I first got there, but Coach Clausen to his credit did a very good job of forcing me to be comfortable in that kind of role," Moss says. "So I think going to 'SC, they prepared me really, really well for that kind of sphere of influence."

Clausen recalls that much like Moss would become with this 2021 USC recruiting class, he was influential in attracting players to want to join him at Alemany. All the while, he was already doing some of the off-the-field things that are perhaps more associated with a college quarterback.

"He's a very outgoing kid. A lot of guys gravitate to him. And when he first stepped foot on campus, obviously everybody wants to know who the quarterback is and then he quickly made a name for himself and attracted a lot of guys who wanted to come to play with him," Clausen said. "And then with the linemen, he took them out to dinner every week -- I think it was Thursday nights or Wednesday nights -- and all the things that a college quarterback has to do, keep those guys up front protecting you happy, he kind of learned that in high school."

One of the teammates Moss had a significant impact on that first year in 2018 was a freshman receiver named Kevin Green Jr., who is now committed to USC in the 2022 recruiting class. Green would go on to lead the team in receiving with 77 catches for 854 yards and 6 TDs, but he credits Moss with helping him believe he could be that kind of player.

"He was very vocal as a leader and he just pushed me and the team to be the best players we could be. Everybody respected Miller," Green said. "He's a really good guy, great person, and he's a nice guy as well, but everybody knew when it was time to get to work. When he'd get on people, because he will get on you -- I know he's gotten on me a few times -- nobody really takes it like that. They take it like an 'OK, let's rock and roll then.' Everybody respected him.

"He actually got me to believe in myself more than I did before. Just having regular conversations with me, telling me, 'Kev, you can do it. You can do this. You can do that.' Because coming in as a freshman, it was kind of hard. I had older players talking down on me to my face, guys that thought they should have been playing that I was playing over and stuff. ... And he'd just have my back telling me, 'Don't worry about them, everything's going to be cool and you can do it' -- just do what I've got to do and be there for what I'm there for."

Bishop Alemany would improve to 9-3 the next season, while Moss completed 67.4 percent of his passes for 3,118 yards, 28 TDs and 10 INTs.

And the Alemany Warriors turned the tables on Oaks Christian, winning 44-7 this time as Moss passed for 291 yards, 2 TDs and 0 INTs.

"They could have beat us 105-0 [in 2018]. They beat us pretty good. And then our following year, we lifted, we ran, we got in the weight room and obviously all our guys were a year older. We played them at our place on national TV and I think that was kind of his coming out party," Clausen said of Moss.

"Adversity, I think, is a great thing, especially for quarterbacks to be able to deal with what he had to deal with as a sophomore. Brand new program, brand new offense, not a very good team, and he could kind of build it. That second year is probably the thing I'm most proud of him growing up."

Moss' college recruitment didn't take off as early as some of the other Southern California QBs in his class, and it was through that experience that he really learned to derive his confidence from within.

"During my freshman year I was pretty frustrated because Tyler Buchner (who would sign with Notre Dame) is one of my good friends, his recruitment had blown up, you saw Jake [Garcia's] recruitment take off and I had an offer from San Jose State," Moss recalls. "But regardless of anyone's opinion, at no point did I ever think they were better than me. At no point was I like, 'I can't play with these guys, I don't have the offers.'"

The offers would come soon enough and from all over.

Michigan was one of the schools pushing hard for Moss early, and he remembers being in coach Jim Harbaugh's office the spring of his sophomore year thinking he might want to commit to the Wolverines.

"My process had kind of just started, and I was like, 'Mom, I think this is where I want to be,'" Moss remembers. "We had gotten some advice from some people who had been through it before, and they were like, 'Just wait till you get home, wait until you talk to Alabama, USC, those guys and reevaluate after that.' Coach Harbaugh definitely put the pressure on me."

Adds Emily Kovner Moss: "Coach Harbaugh can be very persuasive in the moment."

Alabama, LSU and other in-state schools like UCLA and Cal would also become prominent in Moss' recruitment. He remembers another particularly compelling recruiting pitch, when Alabama coach Nick Saban called him on the day that Crimson Tide QB Tua Tagovailoa had been selected with the No. 5 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.

"When it really got down to it, me and Coach Sark (then-Alabama OC Steve Sarkisian) and Coach Saban were talking almost every day. When Tua got drafted, Coach Saban called me and said, 'I can't wait to do this with you in four years.' They're obviously very, very good at what they do -- I don't think that's really a secret," Moss says.

His UCLA recruitment, meanwhile, involved conversations with Hall of Fame QB Troy Aikman.

But all along it was hard to overlook the Trojans.

Moss recalls attending his first Rose Bowl in 2008 (after the 2007 season) when USC and QB John David Booty rolled over Illinois, 49-17. He rattles off the names of the impressive QB succession for the Trojans since Booty without hesitation.

"He's always really loved the school. I attribute this partly because I taught at 'SC and was pregnant with him when I was working there in the School of Architecture," Emily Kovner Moss jokes. "... That's what I loved about [his] recruitment. Miller got that [USC] offer and even though years and years of those thought processes and behaviors had been going on, he still fully went through his recruitment. It's not like he committed the day after he got that offer. He went through the whole process to make the most thoughtful, reasonable, rational decision."

The Trojans offered Moss in June of 2019 after an on-campus recruiting camp. A year later, he announced his commitment to the Trojans.

While the Saban draft day call and the Troy Aikman UCLA conversations stood out from his recruitment, he appreciated USC's approach in a different way.

"Honestly, there was nothing super flashy about USC's recruitment of me, and I think that might have been one of the reasons I chose them, just in that they recruited me on the basis of very practical things," he says. "I think the fact that the entire staff recruited me instead of just the quarterback coach, the OC and the head coach, where I'm walking into that building and I'm comfortable with every single person there. ... Like Coach Orlando used to call me and recruit me, Donte [Williams] used to call me and recruit me, KC (Keary Colbert). I know every single person on that staff. ... I think that was definitely huge for me."

Of all those relationships, his connection with head coach Clay Helton was especially strong as he had known him the longest.

When all the chaos was swirling around USC's QB recruiting picture last fall, the staff made sure to keep Moss in the loop. He said Harrell reached out to him about a week before the Trojans offered Dart to let him know what was happening, and he later had a FaceTime call with Helton about it as well in advance of the public offer.

"I remember I was on the phone, I was like, 'Bring five quarterbacks. Whatever it may be,'" Moss recalls. "... At the end of the day I feel completely comfortable in everything that I can do and the lengths that I'm willing to go to achieve what I need to achieve."

To say there was no late activity in Moss' recruitment would be inaccurate. Schools did try to make a final push to sway him, and the family recalls some resorted to negative recruiting against USC.

"Going into signing day it got really intense -- not unpleasant, but not in our favorite way," Emily Kovner Moss recalls.

But Moss wasn't budging. Talking back in late December before his move to campus, he reflected back on his commitment day and what it meant to him to be a Trojan -- and how in the back of his mind it was always the expected outcome in a way.

"It's funny to think about now, I was never like, 'I'm going to do this.' It was always kind of something, I don't know if I assumed it was going to happen, but it was always like, 'Yeah, I love USC, I'm going to go play quarterback there,'" Moss says. "It wasn't like 'I have to do this, this and this to get there,' it was just an assumption in my mind. I don't know if that was naive of me at however old I was, but that's just how I always thought of it. ...

"I remember [commitment] day, I just put the fight song on the speaker and just ran around the house just kind of like I was a little kid again."

Moss never got to play his senior high school season, but if he had it was going to be at Mater Dei HS.

He had made the tough decision to leave what he had helped build at Bishop Alemany for the opportunity to play at a program that has been a pipeline for top USC talent for so long and one that he felt would best prepare him to join the Trojans.

But that never materialized, with the pandemic wiping out the fall high school season in California and Moss still planning to enroll early at USC in January. That meant he hadn't played in a true football game since the fall of 2019 before joining the Trojans and going through spring practice a year and a half later.

That had its obvious disadvantages, but Moss also found a way to identify a positive from the obstacles of the past year.

"I think one thing, had I played at Mater Dei there would be a very different perception of me right now," Moss says back in late December. "... I think me not having an opportunity to play at Mater Dei might have been one of the best things to happen to me just in that I never had the opportunity to get comfortable. That kind of reestablished a chip I had my sophomore year going in at Alemany -- I felt the need to prove myself. And I think that's one of the best things for me."

Moss took his training into his own hands in the meantime, working with the team at 3DQB in Huntington Beach on his passing mechanics, and doing speed training and weight lifting in Irvine at separate facilities. Sometimes all in the same day.

"You've never worked harder than these last few months," Emily Kovner Moss says during the conversation back in December. "You are training two to three workouts, different kind of workouts every single day. It's hours and hours every day."

While Moss had worked with Clarkson, the renowned Southern California QB guru for seven years, he started working with Taylor Kelly at 3DQB when he was 14.

With Moss not truly being in the competitive spotlight much since that junior season at Alemany, and then just get acclimating to college ball in the spring while showing progress throughout April, it's best to leave the evaluations to those who have worked with him most closely in recent years.

"With the pandemic year and him not getting in 11 vs. 11 competition, its hard for a kid. To not have some of the hype that's out there and have your work that you worked so hard -- he was there three times a week -- and to not be able to showcase that in the fall was tough. But he understood the big picture of what he needed to do," Kelly said. "He put together a great team around him with a strength staff and whatever he was doing with his speed and how he would watch tape on his own. He basically approached it like if he was playing every single week and that takes a lot maturity out of a kid to not have a season but understand the big picture and stay hungry and understand there's a process to it -- I'm going to stick to it and trust it.

"We wanted to build just a little more athleticism through off-platform throws. When he's in the pocket, he can make any throw that you ask him to make. He can go through a progression, it's clean, it's great, he can dial it up. Our biggest thing was add some athleticism so he can get out of the pocket, or athletic movements in the pocket, be able to throw off funny platforms. Those were the things we focused on and we went to work on it."

Clausen, meanwhile, offered his scouting report on what sets Moss apart as a quarterback. He also got the chance to catch up with him as Moss came out to some Bishop Alemany games during the delayed spring season in California.

"His release, I think his knowledge and understanding of the offense, understanding where to go with the ball, understanding matchups, reading coverages. A lot of guys can throw the ball through a wall, but you have to have anticipation, timing, obviously pre-snap a lot of stuff happens before the ball's ever snapped and I think his feel for the game and understanding, smarts, kind of get us the answers to the test before the ball's snapped, and obviously once the ball's snapped, his accuracy and quick release to get the ball out on time," Clausen said, rattling off his scouting report.

"He and Jaylin came to a couple games during the season and then I saw him at Steve Clarkson's retreat down there. He looks good. I know he had a good spring. I know they're really high on the Dart kid too so I think it's going to be a really good competition. ... He felt good about getting there early, which gives you a headstart on the system and the offense, and I think now just getting the rapport down, the timing down with all the guys. The speed obviously is faster and the windows are also a little bit smaller, but like anything else, just reps and being ready to compete because you just never know when your number's going to get called."

Clausen wants to reiterate one more point ...

"He embraces and enjoys competition," he added. "I think that's the biggest thing now in today's society. Things don't work out, something happens, you jump ship and go wherever -- competition is something I think he embraces and he's looking forward to competing with all the guys in that quarterback room at 'SC."

Moss and Dart will resume their competition for the No. 2 QB job -- and early positioning for the opportunity to succeed starter Kedon Slovis if he leaves for the NFL draft after this season -- on Friday when USC opens fall camp.

Helton has said no decision will be made on that competition until after all 25 practices this month.

"It's about where you are in the moment," he said last week at Pac-12 Media Day.

Meanwhile, Moss came into USC with specific goals in mind, and those surely haven't changed, no matter what the outside narrative was coming out of spring practice with Dart receiving a lot of the early hype.

Moss hasn't been made available for interviews yet at USC, but his comments back in December are still plenty applicable today.

"Obviously, I have a particular vision and certain things that I've thought about for a long time that I want to have happen, but I don't think those things are really for me to say right now," he says during that conversation. "I think the one thing I would say is that I'm going to go in there and do everything I possibly can to make my goals come to fruition and I'll be OK with the result of that.

"Kobe's been one of my idols for a long time, and people ask him, 'Are you upset you didn't catch Jordan?' And his answer to that is obviously I wish I would have caught Jordan, but he has absolutely no [regrets] about his career because he knew he gave absolutely everything he could to the game of basketball and winning. So I think that's kind of the attitude I'm trying to go in there with, and whatever the result may be I'll be OK with it."