Jaxson Dart is chosen as USC’s backup quarterback over Miller Moss

Just one year ago, Jaxson Dart was barely a blip on USC’s radar. It would take a senior-season transfer, a pandemic-altered high school campaign, and a meteoric rise to Gatorade national player of the year for Dart to arrive at this moment, with coach Clay Helton making official Thursday what so many around USC had expected since the freshman’s standout spring. Dart will be USC’s backup quarterback behind Kedon Slovis this season, while Miller Moss, a fellow four-star freshman, will occupy the No. “I remember him having that chip on his shoulder and carrying it all the way through the fall, all the way through the spring,” Helton recalled of Kessler, “and then you look up and he was the starting quarterback after Max left.” Helton didn’t rule out a similar situation for next spring, when the two young Trojans quarterbacks will likely find themselves competing again to replace Slovis, assuming the All-Pac-12 Conference passer declares for the draft as expected. “He’s the Gatorade player of the year,” Moss said of Dart earlier this month.