In the waning moments of his worst game as USC’s quarterback, as Notre Dame fans flooded the field in South Bend, Williams kept his head down and made a beeline for the tunnel. Along the way, Notre Dame fans taunted him and shouted his name. One even recorded himself confronting the quarterback. The video went viral.
“Let me see those nails now, bro!” the fan said. Williams kept walking.
It had been a brutal night, by all accounts. Three interceptions. Six sacks. Constant pressure in a collapsing pocket. It was the second consecutive week Williams hadn’t looked like himself. Questions were already being raised about his performance: Was something wrong?
The quarterback did his best to brush off any concern: “That’s one game in the past three years that I’ve had a bad game,” he said.
“When you’re striving for greatness … you’ll have failure, you’ll have success. But doubt? Why think about it?”
The experience, after that failure, did inject some doubt into how Williams might handle taking the reins of a losing NFL franchise. Even he’d acknowledge later, in an interview after the season, that he was still learning how to stay the same person and lead through losses.
But that next week, it was clear Williams was still bothered. Asked about the fan’s viral video, Williams snarked that “everyone wants to be in these two size 12 ½ shoes right here.”
“An opinion of a sheep?” he continued. “Lions don’t worry about that, so I’ll keep moving on and keep fighting.”
