J.T. Daniels gets first crack at replacing Sam Darnold at USC

He was the favorite to replace Sam Darnold, but J.T. Daniels has officially been named the starting quarterback for USC.

Sam Darnold was taken third overall by the New York Jets in April’s NFL Draft, so the USC Trojans have a significant void to fill under center. The four-way competition for the starting job between true freshman J.T. Daniels, redshirt sophomore Matt Fink, redshirt freshman Jack Sears and redshirt sophomore Holden Thomas was settled on Sunday night, with head coach Clay Helton naming Daniels the starter.

Daniels will be the second true freshman to open the season as USC’s starting quarterback, joining Matt Barkley in 2009.

Daniels should be entering his senior year of high school at Mater Dei in Santa Ana, California. But the 2017 Gatorade National Player of the Year reclassified to the Class of 2018, and was ranked by 247 Sports as the No. 2 pro-style quarterback, the No. 2 player out of California and the No. 16 overall player in the class.

Listed at 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds, Daniels appears to be physically ready to be a college quarterback.

Helton elaborated on the decision via a statement.

"We had a very healthy quarterback competition this year with four incredible young men,” Helton said in a statement. “All are tremendous people, teammates and football players. In the end, JT Daniels has earned the starting position and will be the starter against UNLV."

The Trojans open the season net Saturday against UNLV, which should be a mark in the win column. But things will get tougher quickly, with road trips to Stanford (Sept. 8), Texas (Sept. 15) and Arizona (Sept. 29) and a home game against Washington State (Sept. 21) mixed in before the calendar even flips to October.

With Darnold holding down the starting job like he did, USC was going to be turning to inexperience under center this year. The decision to start Daniels was expected, if only based on upside, and he’ll prove it right or wrong pretty quickly.