USC Football: Trojans Land UNLV Transfer Quarterback Jayden Maiava

After a wild recruitment, Maiava finally chooses USC.

Lincoln Riley had been clear that he intended on bringing in one or two quarterbacks via the transfer portal. He has now accomplished the goal, at least in part.

On3's Scott Schrader is reporting that former UNLV quarterback Jayden Maiava is transferring to USC. This comes one day after reports projected that Maiava would commit to Georgia. The decorated signal caller entered the NCAA’s transfer portal on January 1st, just over a week ago. 

As a redshirt freshman at UNLV this past season, Maiava threw for over 3,000 yards and 17 touchdowns, and ran for 277 yards and three touchdowns. He accomplished this at a 62.9% completion clip, leading the Rebels to their first ever conference championship game. 

He measures up at 6'4 about 220 pounds. Maiava absolutely screams of potential to power five coaches, and especially coaches who are proven QB developers like Lincoln Riley. 

As a three-star prospect coming out of Liberty High School in Nevada, Maiava didn't have a ton of offers coming out of high school. According to 247Sports, his lone Division I offers were from UNLV and Louisville. 

USC has been trying to compensate for the departure of former five-star quarterback recruit Malachi Nelson transferring to Boise State, along with the probably departure of 2023 starter Caleb Williams to the NFL. Miller Moss is the speculated QB1 going into 2024, but it's fairly safe to assume Maiava will, at least, have a shot at making a run for Moss' QB1 spot. After all, Moss has only started one game in college, whereas Maiava has a whole season already under his belt, with less overall time spent in college.