Lincoln Riley Says Caleb Williams Has Been 'Fantastic,' But Also 'Has a Long Ways to Go'
Caleb Williams has performed at a neutral site. He’s performed at home. And now he’s performed in a road game.
All three times, the Oklahoma quarterback has done something spectacular. And all three times, he’s shown he’s still just a freshman with plenty of room for growth.
So what does coach Lincoln Riley want to see out of Williams next?
Whether it’s reading defenses better or communicating with the coaching staff or anticipating in-game adjustments or managing his emotions or whatever — what is the next step in Williams’ evolution as the Sooners’ quarterback?
“Yeah some of it is operating, getting used to operating in some of these different situations,” Riley said on Thursday, “and it's gotten smoother.”
Williams’ first college play was a well-rehearsed touchdown run in a specific goal line package. His next game, he got a handful of possessions as the backup in a blowout.
But when he came in on a fourth-and-short against Texas and ran 66 yards for a touchdown, and then stepped into the starting role and rallied the Sooners to victory in Dallas, that’s when things got real.
“It wasn't super smooth but, to be understood, in the Texas game,” Riley said. “It's gotten better here each week.”
In some ways, last week’s inconceivable heroics at Kansas — where Williams’ reached in to take the ball away from Kennedy Brooks on fourth down and broke away for a 5-yard conversion to essentially save the game — was a microcosm of where one might expect a talented freshman quarterback to be: he didn’t overthink the situation, he saw an opportunity and reacted and let his dynamic skills win the day.
Now Riley wants to see Williams develop his quarterback skills — finding weak spots in the defense, manipulating the safety, calling out protections, anticipating blitzes.
Now Riley wants Williams to start playing the game above his shoulders, and before the ball is snapped. That’s where the rare air of true quarterback greatness is achieved.
“There's an efficiency that he can operate with that can improve and will improve as we go on,” Riley said, “and that'll help us become a little bit more efficient offensively.”
This week, Pro Football Focus reported that Williams is the highest-graded freshman in the nation — that is, he executes what he’s supposed to do, he turns in positive plays and he avoids negative plays.
Offering an opinion that someone is a Heisman candidate after just a few games is one thing. But actually grading out higher than any other first-year players nationally is another metric entirely.
“He's so young and he's doing so many good things,” Riley said, “and he also has so much room to grow that it's hard to say that there's not any spot that he doesn't need to grow. But I don't know that there's any spot that he's been just poor on.
“He’s played so well early. He really has. He's been, even areas where he hasn't been great, he hasn't killed us. He hasn't made a lot of big mistakes. All the areas have been ... there's been some areas that have been really good. There's been some areas that have just been OK that need to get better. But he's really limited the big mistakes. And I think for a young guy, that's been particularly impressive.”
The No. 4-ranked Sooners (8-0) host Texas Tech (5-3) on Saturday afternoon in a Big 12 Conference game in Norman. The Red Raiders have a new head coach (Matt Wells was fired Monday), so that means anything is possible — even a new look on defense from defensive coordinator Keith Patterson.
There will come a time on Saturday when Williams has to think his way through a problem and reason out a solution. And he’ll have to do it at 100 mph, like he did in the fourth quarter last week in Lawrence.
“Like we've said about quarterbacks in the past, every week right now is a new challenge for him,” Riley said. “He's had kind of a different lineup every week, you're seeing new things defensively, some things he hasn't seen or hasn't seen a ton of yet at this point in his career. Each week, you're kinda growing, learning and getting ready.
“But he's improving at a good level. He just needs time and reps now. The trajectory's there. It's just a matter now of putting in the work and growing and learning from all these different experiences right now.”
Riley also got a question Thursday about the perception that he’s been restrained with any praise for Williams’ performances, that he never mentions the good without also mentioning the bad. Asked of he was trying to protect Spencer Rattler’s ego or keep Williams from getting too complacent, Riley said there wasn’t really a “game plan” for how he talks publicly about Williams.
“I just try to call it like I see it,” Riley said. “To me, it’s kind of like the flip side of everybody wanting to talk about how bad of a football team we are. I just try to keep a sense of reality and try to just call it like I see it. Caleb’s done a lot of tremendous things. He’s been fantastic for us in a lot of ways. But I also look at the tape and appreciate a lot of the good that he’s doing. I’m also a realist and know that he’s got a long ways to go.
“Again, when he’s done well, he’s doing very well. But he’s also had a lot of guys around him doing very well too. Our world that we live in, it’s rarely as good as it seems and rarely as bad as it seems. It’s typically somewhere in the middle.
“There’s not really any strategy. I wouldn’t say (it’s) Spencer or I wouldn’t factor any other player as far as how I would do that. I just think he’s done well and I appreciate that. He’s got to get a lot better and I think we both see that. We just have to try to keep the focus there.”
