At the end of a flawed and frustrating season, in the final minutes of a rivalry matchup that mattered purely for pride, King Miller took a handoff and saw nothing but open field in front of him.
All night long — all season long, really — very little had come easy for USC against UCLA. The Trojans struggled often at the line of scrimmage. Discipline lapsed. Mistakes snowballed. It was, for a while, a microcosm of what made USC’s season so uneven.
But through it all, Miller’s magic was constant. Ever since he stepped in for the Trojans’ top backs, two months earlier, the walk-on running back was USC’s biggest bright spot.