The worst thing about this very bad USC football season is the Trojans and Lincoln Riley wasted Caleb Williams’ brilliance.
Williams was the only thing propping up this team for most of the season. MarShawn Lloyd had some great games at running back, but most of USC’s wins were the product of one player: Caleb Williams. He scrambled. He improvised. He made highlight-reel plays and scored more than 40 points in a bunch of games. Even in the games USC didn’t score at least 30 points, Williams was there to turn nothing into something. He was horrible against Notre Dame and average against Arizona and Utah.
Against UCLA, he simply had no chance. The Bruins were all over him, forcing him to run for his life with USC trailing on the scoreboard and needing to pass on most downs.
USC wasted Williams, but it’s actually worse than that: The Trojans didn’t waste him by going 9-3 or 8-4. They wasted him by going 7-5. They wasted him far more than anyone could have imagined.
USC fans, as you can see below, are furious, and rightly so. This wasn’t how Williams’ USC career was supposed to end: