Caleb Williams discusses Jalil Farooq's commitment: "We did always say we were gonna play college ball together"
Perhaps no one is as excited for the Sooners' latest 2021 commit as Caleb Williams. And in Monday's edition of his blog series via SI All-American, Williams deferred center stage to his childhood friend and future Oklahoma teammate.
"My boy Jalil Farooq," Williams said. "I'd been pushing him to try and commit to Oklahoma and he finally committed. It was an awesome video, awesome production, he did a good job. His family was awesome, as always, the people that did the video were awesome. ... We've been up to big things since we were kids playing ball together. We wanted to go to high school together, we couldn't make that happen, but we did always say we were gonna play college ball together."
Farooq, who played alongside Williams in seventh and eighth grade, officially pledged to Oklahoma on Sunday evening. He'd been silent committed to the Sooners for several months, but waited to announce his decision until his mother's birthday.
“My relationship with Caleb — we grew up together, basically,” Farooq told SI Sooners. “We had a great bond. He played QB, I played running back, so that’s always a good relationship.”
Farooq's pledge is another massive testament to Lincoln Riley's prowess in recruiting from the Washington, D.C. area, as the Sooners now boast four 2021 commits from the DMV (Williams, Kelvin Gilliam and Damond Harmon are the others). Now, the focus turns to a fifth DMV stud who's also heavily considering the Sooners. Williams went out of his way this past weekend to join Tristan Leigh to stump for fall sports in Virginia.
"It was a Tristan Leigh thing, with his mother, his teammates and other teams in what was basically a push for sports to be played in Virginia," Williams said. "So I drove about an hour to where he was and where they were holding the event and it was actually a really cool event. It was #LetUsPlay, talking about all the schools in the state of Virginia getting to play fall sports. Basically I was there to support Tristan, that's how strongly I feel about him as a human being, as a recruit and as one of my good friends."
Leigh is currently uncommitted, and hasn't set a decision date. Ed Orgeron and LSU are making a heavy run at the SI99 offensive tackle, but the Sooners certainly have the relationship dynamic working in their favor. Leigh attended Sooner Summit alongside Williams and Farooq.
Could Leigh be leaning toward Oklahoma as well? Williams was cryptic in signing off of his blog.
"Next week will be another awesome blog, to make a lot of people happy and a lot of people mad," he said. "But oh well."
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