LAKE FOREST, Ill. – When Caleb Williams first took over as Oklahoma Sooners starting quarterback as a true freshman, he turned some heads. It was in the early stages of a rivalry game against Texas, with the Sooners down 28-7. Williams hit the ground running, literally. He reeled off a 66-yard touchdown run on a 4th-and-1 play to cut the lead in half. From there he threw two more touchdowns and led the Sooners to an incredible 55-48 comeback win.
Bears GM Ryan Poles was among those who were impressed by that performance.
“I was like, 'Who is this kid?’” Poles said after the first round of the NFL draft finished. “Some of those throws were ridiculous.”
Most others caught on at some point over the course of Williams’ Heisman season one year later at USC. Lincoln Riley, Williams’ coach at both Oklahoma and USC, knew the new Bears QB was special much earlier. But even he didn’t anticipate how special Williams could be until a trip to watch him throw one winter, when Williams was still in high school.
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“We had offered him and we were pretty far down the line recruiting him,” Riley said. “I knew he was a great athlete, you could tell that from the tape. It had been awhile since I’d seen him throw, it had been six months or maybe even a year, so I remember seeing him throw and going, ‘He’s really getting better, fast, throwing the ball. Like his passing is progressing faster than I thought it would.’ And I remember thinking, ‘If he keeps growing that way, combined with his athleticism, this could be pretty good.’”
Of course, things were better than pretty good. Including the crazy comeback against Texas, the Sooners went 6-2 with Williams leading the offense as a freshman. When Riley left Oklahoma for USC, Williams followed him. The two flourished in Los Angeles, and Williams won the Heisman Trophy in 2022. Williams and the Trojans had championship aspirations last season, but they were largely held back by one of the worst defenses in the nation. Still, Williams led USC to 41.8 points per game, which ranked third in the country.
Over his entire three years in college, Williams played in 37 games. He completed 66.9% of his passes for 10,082 yards, 93 touchdowns and just 14 interceptions. Williams also gained 966 yards on the ground with 27 rushing touchdowns. He won the Heisman and was named Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year and an All-American in 2022.
Much has been made of that comeback against Texas in the lead up to the draft. And after talking about that one trip to watch Williams in the offseason, Riley mentioned the game too.
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“Having the guts and the confidence to come into that Texas game, and to do what he did in that game when he didn’t really know our stuff nearly as well as he does today, yeah, you knew at that point that there was definitely something special in there.”