How Louisville QB Miller Moss shook his shattered USC dreams - ESPN

THE NIGHT MILLER MOSS learned he was no longer the starting quarterback for the USC Trojans, he went home.

Moss was raised less than 20 miles from campus in a beautiful modern house in Pacific Palisades. His street was lined by other beautiful modern houses and red-flowering gum trees on a hillside that hangs over the ocean. He came home often during his four years at USC.

For as long as he can remember, Moss has liked to walk out to the bluffs, a park near his house where he could look down on Pacific Coast Highway and over to the Santa Monica Pier and out on the waves rolling in from the horizon. It's peaceful. The view of the water expands in a way that invites its visitors to be wildly ambitious. Moss loves that view.

Late on the first Sunday night of last November, Moss stopped at In-N-Out to pick up a 3x3 burger and walked out to the bluffs to process the loss of his dream job. He was angry at the world, disappointed in himself. He replayed all the things he could have done differently, and all the small plot points that had they broken another way might have led to a different story.

He sat in the darkness for hours, looking out at the tiny lights of the pier in the distance. He came to the bluffs seeking the comfort of something familiar, a place to rediscover the conviction of his biggest dreams.

He hasn't been back since.

MOSS IS DRIVING SOUTH through an eight-lane section of the 405 Freeway when he brings up his reading habits. It's a weekday morning in late May. He's wearing black Adidas sweatpants and a matching gray T-shirt behind the wheel of his BMW X3, hemmed in by concrete barriers on one side and traffic on the other. His cleats are resting on the back seat as he motors to his first training session of