COLLEGE PARK, Md. —
In all his years playing the sport, Miller Moss had never traveled so far for a football game. But the past month had seen USC and its quarterback crisscross the country, its College Football Playoff hopes unraveling over three Big Ten trips across multiple time zones. And here, at the tail end of that travel nightmare, was the farthest trip of all, with USC in its most vulnerable place of the season reeling after three losses in four weeks, in desperate need of a get-right game against Maryland.
That stretch had done a number on Moss and the Trojans, his strong start to the season descending into sudden inconsistency that the rest of the team seemed to mirror.