It was unfortunately a too-familiar feeling for Max Williams, even as he tried to convince himself it hadn't happened again.

It was early last April during USC's spring practice, Williams was doing work in individual drills and felt something happen in his knee -- again.

"When it happened, it didn't really hurt at all. But I knew the feeling in my knee was like loose. I was like, damn. I didn't want to believe it happened," he recalls last week. "... I was like, I'm just going to go out and do team [period], but I did it two times and I'm like, 'Nah, I can't do this.' So yeah, I kind of knew it happened because I knew the feeling already."

Williams had sustained a torn ACL in his left knee for the second time, after the first injury wiped out his senior season at Gardena Serra High School. Now it was going to knock him out for what was supposed to be his true breakout season at USC as a redshirt sophomore last fall.

The emerging defensive back hadn't yet received the confirming MRI, but as he called his father Maxzell Williams Sr., after sustaining the injury that Tuesday early last April, he knew.

"I'm thinking it was like a practical joke or something, but then I heard it in his voice and it was just unbelievable. It hurt," his father says over the phone, reflecting back on this past year. "[He was] pretty much crushed. Just the emotions of going through everything at 'SC and being able to come back and he was slated to start and feeling really good. You could see when the USC football team was [posting] videos he'd be in the videos, on the cover of little posters that they were doing, so he was feeling like he arrived."

For all the devastation Williams felt, the second ACL tear was just as hard on his father, who had been his first coach and personal trainer when Williams was just four years old. That 2021 season was everything they had been working toward for so long, and just like that it was gone.

Asked how he helped his son cope with the realization of the setback and the long recovery ahead -- again -- Max Sr. clarifies ...

"I mean, to be honest, I needed help to cope with it," he says. "I think the first time I was strong and I was able to handle it. The second time I almost broke down and it was my wife that had to help me cope with it so we would be able to help him cope with it. But it was hard on me. The second time I couldn't handle it. It was too much in the very beginning for even me to handle it."

From that pain and the ensuing perseverance comes an even fuller appreciation for the present -- Williams back in pads, on the practice field for the Trojans and competing for a starting role at nickel this spring.

There's a distinct ebullience to Williams when he's on the field, in his element. That smile, as his father points out.

That pure joy for the game is what drove Williams to pursue this second rehab process even more aggressively than the first, surprising his doctor with how far ahead of schedule he was by the middle of last fall. It's why anyone who remotely knows him can see on his face how much this means to him now.

"I don't know if we can really put it into words. We're just happy that he's happy. Anytime we see a smile on his face it's like the best feeling in the world because that's the smile he had," Max Sr. says. "Remember he used to smile like that before the injury, like right before, and we were so happy just to see how happy he was going into last [spring]. So he has that smile back times 10."

Williams' first ACL rehab had delayed his ability to compete for a role as a true freshman in 2019, but he found his way onto the field nonetheless for four games (notching a sack, a forced fumble and a pass deflection) before an ankle injury ended his season early.

He would appear in all six games of the COVID-shortened 2020 season, making three starts, finishing with 22 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss and a pass breakup.

Williams was a favorite of the previous coaching staff, for both his work ethic and his instincts on the field. It stood to reason that he had a real chance to compete for a starting role last fall despite the presence of veteran Greg Johnson at nickel.

Instead, the night after he underwent his MRI, Williams' family came to campus to pack him up and move him back home for the time being.

"We had to move him out of his apartment, move him back in the house, just so we could be with him mentally," Max Sr. says. "... He had to come home. He had to."

"I think it was harder emotionally," the younger Williams says of the second ACL rehab. "But physically the second time the process was easier. I already knew what to expect, all the work I had to put in."

But instead of doing what his physical therapist told him to this time, he did more.

He would often go through that structured workout, then another one at the USC facilities and then do some more back at home.

"Whatever he was asked to do he just always did more," his father says.

Williams notes that he was 2-3 months ahead of the typical recovery pace, as he was running two months after surgery and cutting after three months.

"I was doing rehab workouts two, three times a day, just putting work in on my own, working out with my dad, working out with the trainers up here. I was doing way more [than I was told to]," he says. "Sometimes the trainers would get upset at me because of how much I was doing, but I knew the work I had to put in to get back where I wanted to be."

USC tracks players' activity levels during practices with sensors they wear across their chest, and Williams would often have the highest player load last fall despite not actually participating in practice. He just never stopped moving, running around the outside of the field to stay in shape and keep pushing -- trying to keep alive the chance of playing at some point last season.

Given all that, when USC first sent him to a specialist in El Segundo to evaluate whether he was cleared for competition or not, he was surprised by the results.

"USC sent him to get cleared to where they did all type of testing on his individual movement, and when he did that he tested really low. And it was almost like mentally crushing. He couldn't believe it. He thought something was wrong," Max Sr. recalls. "I just tried to tell him, 'You can't think of it like that. You have to think of it as, whatever they tell you you're doing wrong then you've got to fix it.' Then he just focused on all the stuff they said he was doing that would cause him to reinjure or tear his ACL again -- the way that he jumped, the way that he landed, the way that he took off.

"He worked on doing those same movements, so when he retested again [a month later] he tested really high. And he actually learned what he can do to help him strengthen his limbs to not tear his ACL again."

The next time he met with a doctor to discuss getting cleared to play, the surprise came from the other end of the conversation.

It was leading into USC's game at Arizona State early last November. The middle of the three Williams brothers, Macen, is a defensive back for the Sun Devils, and eldest brother Max had been pushing to be able to play in that game -- just seven months after the injury occurred.

"It was me, my wife, him, coach [Craig] Naivar and the doctor. We all sat down and just had a discussion, and basically the doctor said that he passed all the tests that it took to come back and actually play. He wanted to play against his brother. But one thing the doctor said that kind of caught our attention, he said he didn't feel like he would even be in a position to have this conversation because nobody comes back this fast from an ACL," Max Sr. says. "... The main thing that he said that kind of opened our eyes was when he said, 'Yeah, you can come back, but it's been so fast, to be honest, you haven't let enough time pass for blood flow to completely regenerate the bones.' That was kind of eye-opening.

"He said, 'I've watched you play, you're really good, you have a chance to play on the next level. It would make no sense for you to come back with the season that we're having right now and play when we could save you [for] next year knowing that it's going to be a new coaching staff and things are going to be changed around and you could play for the new regime and you'll be even more healthier.'"

Williams was pushing to play -- had been pushing since the day of his surgery to get back on the field as soon as humanly possible -- but he accepted the recommendation of the doctor.

"Initially I was pushing to play. I checked all the checkmarks to be able to play. I had the strength, I had the mobility. I was looking good. That's why I was out here during practice with my full pads getting used to it again, but we had long conversations every day with the doctor and my parents and we just thought it was the best decision to just wait it out," he says.

And so the anticipation continued to mount ...

To further complicate the situation, not only had Williams now lost another full season of his football career, but he would lose the coaching staff that had believed in him so much along the way.

He was now returning to a new coaching staff that hadn't recruited him, that hadn't seen him at his best, he was now a year removed from competition at a time when new head coach Lincoln Riley made it clear he planned to turn over a larger percentage of the roster from the 4-8 team he inherited.

If there was any anxiety about where Williams stood, though, it dissipated quickly.

"Initially, at first, it was," Max Sr. says. "It was more or less, dang, man, the previous staff, they loved Max and we knew how much they loved him. We knew what they wanted to do with him. It was a concern in the very beginning about starting over, until Max actually met with Coach Riley and that's when I understood their process. They did their due diligence to where Max didn't have to tell them anything. Coach Riley had notes on him and said, 'We watched film on you in the 2020 season, really liked what we saw. We talked to the training staff, we talked to support staff, we know the previous coaches really loved you and everybody around the whole campus just speaks highly of you. That speaks volumes of your character and your leadership.'

"So that meant a lot that they actually did their due diligence. They came in with a plan and you can't do nothing but respect that. They wanted to weed out certain kids on the team, and when it came to Max they really loved him and felt like he would be able to help the team tremendously. Just them being around him the first couple weeks, I mean, they fell in love with him."

It's hard to read too deeply into the limited periods of practice media are allowed to watch this spring, but whenever the defense has separated into units Williams has been the first-team nickel.

Meanwhile, it's much easier to read into the comments of defensive coordinator Alex Grinch when he was asked last week about his first impressions of Williams and his comeback from two ACL surgeries.

"Yeah, if you wouldn't have told me he had any injuries, I wouldn't have guessed it at all," Grinch said. "Credit goes to him, credit goes to the medical staff, and I was reminded of that today in fact. I've not seen that, any deficiencies from an athletic standpoint. He's smart, he's tough, he can run, he's been a pleasure to coach thus far. We need more Max Williams'."

Asked how close to his old self he feels, Williams doesn't hesitate: "I feel like I'm all the way there," he says.

When a high-level athlete sustains the same injury twice, especially once such as an ACL tear that happened both times in non-contact situations, it's fair to wonder about the mental or psychological obstacle of truly putting it out of mind.

Williams is determined not to look back, has been since the second surgery, and so he chose to leave himself no overt reminders of what he'd been through -- again.

"I blocked it out early in the process, actually. Like when I was doing rehab and stuff, I never wore a knee brace throughout this whole process. I would never put a knee brace on, none of that, so I kind of blocked it out," he says. "I've been confident -- it happened twice [but] I feel like I put the work in for it not to happen again."

When asked what he hopes to show people -- or remind them of -- this year, Williams flashes that big smile.

"Mad Max is just out there going to make plays, feeling great again, feeling healthy, feeling confident," he says.