Two years of magic at USC, conjured at the most critical of moments and in the most spectacular of fashions, had made it possible to believe Caleb Williams was capable of rewriting fate whenever he pleased.
He’d turned the tides so many times for the Trojans, bending games to his favor, that his on-field heroism had become the expectation. Before long, the sentiment was second nature. Whatever hole USC had dug in any given week, Williams would dig the Trojans out.
But by Saturday, the hole dug during the second half of the Trojans’ season had grown cavernously deep, too deep even for a generational talent like Williams to climb out of.