Caleb Williams Must Find Consistency to Propel Oklahoma to Bedlam Victory
NORMAN — Oklahoma needs Caleb Williams to be great this weekend.
The No. 10-ranked Sooners still have all of their goals ahead fo them.
A victory on Saturday night over the No. 7 Oklahoma State Cowboys will punch OU’s ticket to the Big 12 Championship Game, and keep alive OU's outside shot of sneaking back into the College Football Playoff, but they’ll need their quarterback to return to his magical self against the best defense they’ve played all season.
The past two weeks, Williams has seen a major step up in competition. The Baylor Bears and Iowa State Cyclones held him to a combined 18-of-37 passing for 233 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions.
There have been moments of brilliance the past two weeks, mainly on the ground, but Lincoln Riley said he just needs Williams to find a middle ground when he’s not moving the chains with massive plays to find success against the Cowboy defense.
“I think we need just a big stack of routine plays out of him,” Riley said Tuesday during his weekly press conference. “(Oklahoma State) certainly doesn’t make that easy, but the more routine plays that he can make, then I think the big ones from him and from other players on our offense will come that way.
“Honestly, when he's done that, when we've done that as an offense, we've played pretty well.”
But even though Williams hasn’t looked like himself during the past two weeks, his teammates say he hasn’t really changed one bit off the field.
“His personality hasn't changed at all,” tight end/H-back Jeremiah Hall said Tuesday. “He's still out there having fun, He's still out there smiling.
“I will say you can tell he's a little bit more locked in. He's a little bit more business-like, if that makes sense. There's less goofing around on the sidelines. There's more attentiveness to what things are going on when he's not on the field. So he's grown, and I've been able to see that in the little bit of time that he's had the starting quarterback role."
Now, Riley needs him to progress on the field.
Williams is in the toughest stretch of his young career, but it’s easy to forget he’s only been Oklahoma’s starter for half a season. As Williams gains more experience and takes more live reps, Riley said as a play-caller, he himself is growing more comfortable with Williams.
“I think we’re both still kind of feeling each other out right now,” Riley said. “We’ve had some games where we’ve played, we and he, have played lights out. We’ve had some games where we’ve been good at times and not good at times. I think as you through these different experiences, you’re learning.
“For him, he’s just now hitting kind of the halfway point of his first season. You’re playing a run here of fairly experienced defenses. This one may be … I’m trying to think of all the years, I don’t know if I’ve ever played a more experienced or senior-heavy defense than the one we’ll play Saturday night. And so we’re learning.”
One area of growth the Sooners could get out of Williams this week is in the running game.
It seems like every game that Williams makes a spectacular play with his feet, but he’s been reluctant to tuck the ball on called passes the past two weeks.
While Riley said it’s a part of the game Williams does have to improve, he has full confidence Williams will have better recognition of when to take off this week.
“I think it's just, again, feel for the game, feel for how you're being defended,” Riley said. “Feel for what you've got to do in given moments to move the football and keep us keep us marching down the field.”
Even though he was a hero in the Cotton Bowl for Oklahoma, Williams will have to find a way to top his October play on Saturday against Oklahoma State to propel the Sooners to new heights in their season finale.
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