LOS ANGELES — He was supposed to be the heir apparent at Troy, taking the torch from Caleb Williams as Lincoln Riley’s hand-picked next protege.
Instead, Malachi Nelson appears to be walking into the sunset before he even had a shot at filling Williams’ shoes.
On Sunday night, a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed a variety of reports Nelson was expected to enter the transfer portal, which would bring a surprising and sudden end to the tenure of one of Riley’s biggest recruiting wins since taking the head-coaching job at USC. Nelson was widely regarded as one of the top quarterbacks in the class of 2023 after a standout career at Los Alamitos, committing to USC after throwing for 39 touchdowns his junior year with the Griffins.
His freshman year, though, never much got going as a Trojan, looking spotty in camp and then spending the season mired on the scout-team and third on the depth chart behind Williams and backup Miller Moss. He battled injuries for much of the year, Riley alluded in December, but seemed to have a path to chase a starting job with Williams likely heading for the NFL Draft and left to compete with Moss.
“He’s certainly going to get there and certainly has a bright future and has battled for a lot of things,” Riley said in early December. “So we’re eager to get him back completely healthy and back to where he’s developing on a really fast track and I don’t think he’s that far away from it, but that’s still been a little bit of a process.”
The source couldn’t confirm, however, if Nelson has specifically entered the portal yet, and the quarterback’s current status is unclear. A shoe may be waiting to drop at USC; as Riley made it clear USC would “look in the portal at some quarterbacks,” the coach said two weeks ago.
Kansas State transfer quarterback Will Howard posted on his Instagram story a video of him on a visit to the Coliseum this weekend — amid ceaseless buzz Howard could step into Williams’ vacated starting role.
In the meantime, Nelson’s departure would leave USC in an interesting situation at quarterback in the Holiday Bowl, with Moss truly uncontested for playing time against Louisville.
