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USC football head coach Lincoln Riley has made it official that his starting quarterback for the 2024 season will be Miller Moss. The news is not too surprising to Trojans fans who watched the incoming junior shred Louisville’s defense in the Holiday Bowl at the end of last season.
Moss, after spending three years on the bench for the Trojans, now has the unenviable task of replacing Caleb Williams, a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback who was the No. 1 pick in this year’s NFL Draft.
But again, Moss turned a lot of heads in that Holiday Bowl game, making the transition from Williams to him hopefully seem much smoother. That likely means a lot of stock is being put in him to help the Trojans navigate what is now a Big Ten Conference schedule and get back to traditional USC football.
While Moss will have his work cut out for him and will undoubtedly be a determining factor in USC’s success in 2024, he might not be the X-factor on the team that could elevate them to the next level. That distinction lies with true sophomore wide receiver Zachariah Branch.
Zachariah Branch must be the x-factor for USC football in 2024
Maybe this is a given, and then again, maybe it’s not. However, Branch doesn’t seem to be a name often talked about like he was at the beginning of last year. He did play in only 11 of USC’s 13 games last season, though, dealing with multiple injuries throughout the year.
As a true freshman, he got off to a red-hot start, returning a kickoff for a score in the Trojans’ season opener against San Jose State. He was the first Trojans player to accomplish such a feat since 2019 and the first true freshman to do so since 2014.
Branch is an all-around, versatile player. The former five-star prospect can run, catch, and, clearly, is a dangerous return man. For the season, he had 1,164 all-purpose yards with five touchdowns. But even that seems like a meager sample size of what this guy can truly do.
Branch was listed on ESPN’s top 100 players list, coming in at No. 78.
“The USC freshman exploded onto the scene last year as one of the fastest players in the sport, and his 774 punt and kickoff return yards earned him an All-America team spot,” ESPN wrote. “Now the real challenge begins. Not only will Branch be a known quantity that special teams will be selling out to stop, but the Trojans need him to be one of the offense’s top producing receivers in a post-Caleb Williams world.”
Though Moss put a lot of concerns to rest with his bowl game performance, it’s still a small sample size to rely on. Riley will undoubtedly be hoping once again to have an explosive offense that catapults his team into the top echelon of college football, especially now in the Big Ten.
And if there’s anything we know about Riley, it’s that he likes to lean on his most dominant players, even to a fault, as he did with Williams over the last two seasons. The fact that Branch is such a versatile player definitely plays into that. One can only wonder what type of plays Riley has put together for him this season.
Branch will be part of a talented wide receiver room with other highly touted players similar to himself, such as Duce Robinson, Ja’Kobi Lane, and Makai Lemon. But really, the Trojans need Branch to be the superstar of this team, making the offense dynamic.
