This Time, Williams Gets a Grip in Victory

With each catch Saturday, Mike Williams slowly earned redemption.

And won back his reputation.

A week after dropping four passes in a loss to Kansas State, Williams returned to the sure-handed form he showed throughout training camp by catching two touchdown passes in USC’s 22-0 victory over Oregon State in a Pacific 10 Conference opener at the Coliseum.

Williams, who finished with four catches for 62 yards, said the key was staying positive and feeding off the encouragement of teammates and coaches.

“My teammates had confidence in me the whole time,” he said. “I forgot about last week, it was over. I worked hard in practice this week, and they just called my number. I came through.”

After his miserable outing in the 27-20 loss at Kansas State, a performance he described as not being able to “catch a cold in the North Pole with an ice cube on my nose,” Williams demonstrated why he has drawn comparisons to Keyshawn Johnson.

The 6-foot-5, 215-pound freshman from Tampa, Fla., lived up to the hype by making all the catches expected of a big-time receiver.

He scored his first college touchdown on an 11-yard pass from Carson Palmer with 10 seconds left in the first half, giving USC a 13-0 lead. Palmer bought time by eluding a rush before spotting Williams alone in the deep right corner of the end zone. Strong safety Lawrence Turner left Williams alone when it appeared Palmer might run.

“Carson did a good job of finding me,” Williams said. “I had mentioned to him earlier that [Turner] couldn’t guard me. That’s the kind of quarterback he is. If you tell him what works, he goes with it. I did what I didn’t do last week. I caught it.

“It was my first college touchdown, of course it felt great,” he added. “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for that. I blew a couple of opportunities last week and the week before that, so to finally do it is a great feeling.”

On his second touchdown, Williams ran a fade route into the left corner of the end zone and outjumped 5-11 cornerback Shamon Jamerson to haul in a 16-yard touchdown pass from Palmer, giving the Trojans a 19-0 lead with 4:45 left in the third quarter.

“That’s routine,” Williams said. “We work on that in practice, going up and getting the ball. Carson put it where he throws it in practice.”

Palmer said despite what happened last week he never lost faith in Williams. “He came out and did what we expected him to do,” Palmer said. “It didn’t surprise me at all after the week he had last week.”

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Left tackle Jacob Rogers suffered a sprained right knee in the second quarter and was replaced by Eric Torres.... Free safety DeShaun Hill left the game with a shoulder injury.... Sandy Fletcher, moved from safety to wide receiver for the game, sprained his left ankle.