Caleb Williams Reflects on Commitment, Elite11 Competition
Attend the Elite11? Win MVP honors? Commit to a prestigious Power 5 school with CFP potential?
All in a week's work for Caleb Williams.
Five days after taking home the MVP crown at the 2020 Elite11 competition - and less than 48 hours after announcing his commitment to Oklahoma - Williams reflected on the biggest week of his life with SI All-American in his 'All on the Line' blog series. The week began in Nashville, where he showcased his talents alongside 19 other top-notch prep quarterbacks from across the country.
"Especially being a quarterback, you have a lot stronger and bigger voice than you think you have," wrote Williams. "It's what the Elite 11 was really about and obviously we had a little bit of football. I'm proud to now be a part of the Elite 11 brotherhood."
But perhaps more importantly, he's also now a part of the Sooner family. Williams chose Oklahoma over LSU and Maryland in a televised decision on Saturday night, and said that his relationship with Lincoln Riley helped make his decision easy.
"I just truly felt like it was best for me from the family aspect, for helping me get to my next goal after high school and then after college," he continued. "Also, Coach (Lincoln) Riley is an awesome guy, an awesome coach. He's done some pretty awesome things in his first couple years here, especially with his first three quarterbacks. They've all gone to the NFL so far."
Baker Mayfield won the Heisman Trophy in 2017. Kyler Murray followed suit in 2018. Only a historically prolific season from Joe Burrow prevented Jalen Hurts from scoring the Sooners' third consecutive Heisman. With the Spencer Rattler era now dawned in Norman, Williams figures to be next in the Sooners' phenomenal lineage of quarterbacks.
"At the end of the day I feel like it was the best for me," Williams opined. "It can help me achieve winning national championships at the college level and hopefully getting into the pros."
Though he relished the unabated attention from elite Power 5 programs over nearly four years, Williams is thrilled to have his recruitment finished. By the time he donned the Sooner crimson on Saturday night, he was thoroughly exhausted with the process.
"It's not really the thing that you want to do, you kinda just want to play football, hang out with your friends and things like that," Williams wrote. "But this was a big part of my life and you've gotta take time and focus on these things. So now that we know, I know I can recruit to one school because I know what school I'm going to. Hopefully we bring success with the guys there, but this is a great sigh of relief."
It's a great sigh of relief for Sooner Nation as well, as they can now look to the future with confidence in their next man up.
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