The longest embrace came, though, from the man who’d just beaten him.

After finishing off a win over their crosstown rival, UCLA coach Chip Kelly trekked all the way across the turf to find Williams and give him a hug. The Bruins head coach covered his mouth with a clipboard, two titans who had formed the last mark on USC and UCLA’s Pac-12 days, speaking softly to Williams with a smile and pounding his chest with a fist.

The golden arm went bounding off, raising his hands in an evident goodbye to the remaining stragglers who’d stayed as the stands emptied early. It was, in a picture, the end many expected from this latest bout for the Victory Bell: Williams exiting the Coliseum in a blaze of glory for what could be the last time, and Kelly left behind amid deafening rumors it’d be his last time donning a UCLA headset.

Except it was Kelly, on this Saturday afternoon, who walked into Los Angeles sunset, buoying UCLA to a 38-20 win with an aggressive ground game and improved defense that contained Williams — potentially finishing his job at USC in an anticlimax, and quashing calls for Kelly’s job in splendor.

The Bruins’ head coach was left, postgame, to swat away rumors of his imminent firing, saying UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond had told them they were “inaccurate” and inappropriate.”

“I’ve never been governed by the fear,” Kelly said, “of what other people say.”

Williams, meanwhile, didn’t show his face in a postgame presser – electing not to speak to media, according to a USC spokesperson.

For two years, in moments when Troy has burned, Williams has donned his Superman cape and saved the city. When his defense has been pulverized, he’s been there to clean up the mess. He seemed poised for one (potential) last display of heroism Saturday, throwing for 269 yards in the first half to energize a program with body language slumping to the earth.

“We live by him, we die by him,” receiver Tahj Washington said postgame.

But Williams’ larger impact Saturday was curtailed for long stretches by a Kelly attack that drew out the clock and a D’Anton Lynn defense that completely swallowed the Trojans’ run game. Kelly’s game plan, from the outset, was simple and effective: Sustain drives and run the ball down the ticker of a USC defense that began the first quarter seeming to lack heart.

The Coliseum was asleep for 15 opening minutes, the only energy from a home crowd coming when the stadium Jumbotron would cut to bubbly pop star Olivia Rodrigo, the Gen-Z icon seemingly everywhere from the sidelines to the DJ booth. After Bruins quarterback Ethan Garbers hit wide-open tight end Hudson Habermehl for a score to cap off a beautifully orchestrated first frame, safety Bryson Shaw threw out his hands in a post-play conversation with corner Christian Roland-Wallace, the same confusion that had marred an ugly defensive first half against Oregon.

“I expect us to take a major step forward this weekend,” head coach Lincoln Riley said Thursday of his defense, in a sentence that seemed hollow after UCLA took an early two-score lead.

They held the Bruins to a goose-egg in the second quarter, but Kelly out-maneuvered Riley handily out of halftime (USC was only losing 14-10). At the beginning of the third quarter, a UCLA offense that had scored 17 points combined in the last two games went 15 plays and 65 yards, Garbers sustaining a blow from a beelining Jaylin Smith and capping it off with a short touchdown flip to running back TJ Harden.

The wheels came off the next drive for USC, as Trojans back MarShawn Lloyd took a handoff and cut back once and twice and three times – only to trip and let the football slip right into the waiting arms of UCLA defensive back Alex Johnson, who took a fumble return for a touchdown that increased a UCLA lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

USC mustered just one touchdown the rest of the way. UCLA edge rusher Laiatu Latu came alive on a third-quarter drive to stifle Williams with back-to-back sacks, the Bruins’ front holding the Trojans to 3 net rushing yards on 22 carries. It was a virtuoso performance from Kelly, who orchestrated an offense that looked less-than-dominant but still hung 38 points on USC.

“I’ve always believed this is a really resilient football team,” Kelly said. “That’s football, you know. I love this game unconditionally.”

With pressure off Kelly’s shoulders, the microscope Saturday quickly turned across the sideline to Riley – now ending a once-promising second season 7-5. And notably, after echoing the same hollow sentiments he’d preached for weeks about the Trojans’ season looking different if not for a few plays, Riley took clear and pronounced accountability.

“To not give yourself a chance, like today, it’s unacceptable,” Riley said. “I gotta be better. I mean, there’s no way to look at this and say I did any kind of a good job and we got the result we did in the second half of the season.”

And Riley may now be walking into the test of his career — entering the maw of the Big Ten without his Superman behind center, waving goodbye to the fans at the Coliseum Saturday in a way that felt awfully final.

ocregister.com

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