Too Many 5-Star QBs?
Caleb Williams on his visit to OU
If top 2021 quarterback prospect Caleb Williams ultimately chooses Oklahoma, the Sooners will have two 5-star QBs on the roster.
It’s a good problem to have, and Lincoln Riley would like his chances in that scenario.
Last week Williams promised “exciting news coming up really soon” in his exclusive recruiting journal for Sports Illustrated. On Monday, the young star out of Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C., narrowed his finalist list to three schools: Maryland, LSU and OU.
"I really feel like those three can help propel me to the next level and help propel my game to the next level," Williams said in his weekly blog, "All on the Line."
If he does choose to be a Sooner, that would give Riley two 5-star preps in the same quarterback room. Spencer Rattler arrived in the 2019 class, and Williams would come two years behind him.
In the current college football climate, where the transfer portal is always open and quarterbacks change teams like they change shoes, it’s impossible to predict what Riley’s depth chart might look like two years down the road, or three. Or four.
Rattler first needs to win the job in 2020, of course. Many assume it’s a foregone conclusion that the uber-talented Rattler will beat out third-year sophomore Tanner Mordecai — assuming there is a college football season, anyway.
Rattler’s electric arm and fleet feet seem to be the kind of weapons that Riley favors to run his offense. His last two QBs, Kyler Murray and Jalen Hurts, had varying combinations of those and exploded. But Baker Mayfield won the Heisman because of his innate senses and his knowledge of Riley’s offense. Anyone who knows Riley even a little realizes that if Mordecai has more of those qualities than Rattler, then Mordecai is absolutely in the mix in 2020.
If Mordecai wins the job now, what does Rattler do? Stay and work harder, or transfer?
And if Mordecai does become the next Mayfield (remember, Mayfield wasn’t even the next Mayfield until suddenly he was), then what does Williams do?
Stay and work harder, or transfer?
The grass isn’t necessarily greener at LSU or Maryland. The Tigers sent Joe Burrow to the NFL, but they sent passing game coordinator Joe Brady to the league, too. Sophomore Myles Brennan is pencilled in as the starter in 2020, and two true freshman are on the depth chart behind him. It sounds reasonable to say Williams would look good in an LSU uniform in 2021, but a generation of quarterbacks struggled in Baton Rouge before Brady and Burrow teamed up in 2019.
LSU has 4-star quarterback Max Johnson committed for 2020 but Williams has been their top QB priority for 2021.
Local favorite Maryland has an immediate need for a 2021 quarterback — senior Josh Jackson is the starter, and two other seniors just left via the portal — but the Terrapins were just 3-9 in Mike Locksley’s first season. Also, the Terps have had three head coaches in five years (four including Locksley’s brief stint as interim coach between Randy Edsall and D.J. Durkin). Locksley is certainly popular and respected, but the program doesn’t exactly project stability.
Maryland doesn't have a quarterback coming in 2020 or one committed for 2021.
Then there’s Oklahoma.
Assuming Rattler wins the job this year, he would be the starter in 2020 and 2021, and then he might have a decision to make about the NFL.
If Williams picks OU and is OK with sitting out his freshman season, he’d then have two years to play — just like Rattler — before he too might have a decision to make about the NFL.
But think about this: if Rattler wins the job in 2020 and then starts for four years, Williams could find himself sitting behind Rattler for 2021, ’22 and ’23.
Would a 5-star QB be that patient?
By then, Riley will have pursued (and probably signed) other 5-star quarterbacks, and Williams would have to hold off any new recruits while sitting behind Rattler.
Again, it’s impossible to predict what will happen — after all, Mayfield, Murray and Hurts all started their careers somewhere else and did pretty good at OU — yet that’s one scenario.
Another scenario is that Rattler, who redshirted 2019, starts for two years and leaves for the NFL, and Williams, who would redshirt 2021, starts for two years and leaves for the NFL.
NFL teams do seem to trust what Riley is doing with his quarterbacks.
It’s a good problem to have.
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