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Jayden Maiava has the talent and now the training to be the Trojans’ starter in the future. (Ric Tapia / Getty Images)
By the time he arrived at USC last spring, Jayden Maiava looked late to the party. Miller Moss had staked his claim on the Trojans’ open quarterback spot in December, throwing six touchdowns in a debut so convincing that coach Lincoln Riley joked he would scare away any transfers who might want to come.
Not Maiava. Just two weeks after Moss’ fairytale first start in the Holiday Bowl, he left an assured starting role at Nevada Las Vegas, then flipped his commitment from Georgia to compete for a job at USC that already seemed won.
It was the opposite path most passers would take in this era of instant portal gratification. Yet Maiava’s journey already had been more circuitous than most. He didn’t have the experience of other top quarterback prospects, having picked up the position as a teenager. He didn’t grow up learning from a private coach, paying top dollar to train like so many of his peers. Instead, he bounced between three high schools in two states, moving in with his uncle in Hawaii as a sophomore out of concern his life was heading off course in Las Vegas.
Any concerns have faded, replaced by a quiet determination in Maiava and a groundswell of intrigue at USC, where coaches and players alike have raved about a “major, major jump” from the redshirt sophomore. What seemed like a runaway competition as recently as last month wound up being “neck and neck” as a result, according to Riley. Even Moss, who ultimately was named the starter, attested to how much Maiava pushed him.
“He’s got a bright future here,” Riley said. “No doubt about that. It was a great battle.”
Consider the extraordinary tools at his disposal and you start to understand the makings of that rapid…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/jayden-maiava-tools-training-uscs-110001364.html
Author : LA Times
Publish date : 2024-08-25 11:00:01
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