COLUMN: How Long Until Oklahoma Fans Forgive Caleb Williams? There's Precedent, but it Could Be a While

COLUMN

Caleb Williams did everything he could to become a legend at Oklahoma.

Everything, that is, except stick around.

News came down Tuesday morning that Williams has officially announced his transfer from OU to USC. He wants to be an elite NFL quarterback more than anything, so he’s following Lincoln Riley to Troy. That part makes sense.

OU fans, of course, are over it. They’re over the drama that came along with signing the No. 1 recruit in the nation, the drama that comes with a talent so prodigious he unseated the incumbent starter and preseason Heisman favorite halfway by mid-October, the drama that comes with being an elite quarterback in the age of the transfer portal and Name, Image and Likeness rules.

Williams was so good he rallied the Sooners from 21 points down against rival Texas, both with his supernatural passing and his supernatural running. He was so good he stripped the football from his own teammate to convert an otherwise failed fourth down in what could have been a loss to Kansas. He was so good he earned national player of the week accolades after a 400-yard, six-touchdown outing in a conference game. He was so good, national pundits thrust him into the 2021 Heisman race even though he’d started less than half the season.

He was so good he put Oklahoma in position to return to the Big 12 Championship Game despite his head coach being dialed out because he was basically job hunting.

A lot of Sooner Nation is raw right now. Not all, but a lot. And it’s understandable.

They’re mad because Williams committed to Riley, rather than the Oklahoma program. But the fact is, that’s not even remotely uncommon. Kids do it every day — at every position. It’s pie-in-the-sky to think these teenagers are as emotionally invested in your program as you are — before they even arrive. It’s just not realistic. Most recruits aren’t actually buying the car, they’re buying the salesman’s pitch.

They’re mad because Williams went radio silent before the Alamo Bowl, then left the fan base twisting in the wind for a month after entering the transfer portal. Fish or cut bait already, they said. Make up your mind. Tell us what you’re doing. It took forever.

They’re mad because Williams and his father — intentional or not, accurate or not — gave the impression that they were shopping around for the “best deal,” meaning, most lucrative NIL offers. USC? UCLA? LSU? Wisconsin? Really? Wisconsin? Whatever his true motivation, the perception is that Williams decided to take the money and run. Did he give Oklahoma a real competitive chance in that realm? Who knows? But it doesn’t feel like he did. Perception is reality, and in the NIL era, student-athletes can now make career decisions based on the highest bidder.

Most of all, they’re mad that he joined Riley. That one is pretty understandable. Riley’s midnight departure and lousy excuses soured him forever with one of the biggest, loudest, most passionate fan bases college football has ever seen — and that will never change. That Williams joined Riley puts him in league with the enemy.

Anyway, nobody should try to tell OU fans how they should be feeling. It's OK to be mad. It's OK to forgive and forget. It's OK to wish Caleb Williams well at USC and in the NFL.

However everyone feels about Williams, it's a certainty that the entire fan base is now 100 percent behind Williams' replacement, Dillon Gabriel — himself a transfer from UCF. The OU offense will be just fine with Gabriel behind center.

But there are various measures of precedent here that indicate that Williams — someday, probably years if not decades into the future — can come back to Oklahoma.

Marcus Dupree became “The Best That Never Was” because he left Oklahoma after a true freshman season that was simply otherworldly. Dupree wasn’t happy with the OU coaching staff after Barry Switzer criticized him (fairly) for being overweight in the Fiesta Bowl. So he went home — badly concussed after a big hit against Texas — halfway through his sophomore season, got lots of bad advice, and didn’t come back.

Dupree absolutely makes a case for the greatest running back in history based on that one almost impossible season. But Sooner fans held it against him for quitting on Switzer, for walking out on his teammates, for leaving a college football powerhouse too soon. And the whole incident left Dupree with a lifetime of regret: he never was admitted into school where he wanted to play for Southern Mississippi, he got injured when he left early for the USFL, and his NFL career consisted of little more than injury-filled training camps.

OU fans were angry with Dupree for decades. But, being cut from the Oklahoma Standard, they eventually forgave him. His ESPN 30 for 30 helped tell completely his story and brought the last of the crimson and cream grudge-holders. Today, Dupree is almost universally beloved by the fan base he once scorned with an immature and regrettable life-altering decision.

More recently, and to a much lesser extent, Trae Young disappointed OU fans — not because he was a basketball one-and-done, but because his unique style of play simply didn’t fit well with coach Lon Kruger’s philosophy or his older teammates’ objectives.

OU lost game after game after game down the stretch of that season as Young struggled to build a lasting, winning chemistry. He remains the only player in college basketball history to lead the nation in both scoring and assists, but fans resented the notion that his distinctive game didn’t produce wins. They also resented that every broadcast crew talked about nothing but Trae Young, heaping individual praise and speculating on his NBA future even as the losses piled up. Even when Young was playing on another channel, the ESPN crawl featured his always impressive (if not frequently abnormal) stat line.

None of that was never Young’s fault, of course. He played his game and played it well. But the more praise Young got as an individual, and the more games his team lost, the more resentment built up among the fan base. Again, not his fault. But it was there.

As time passes, the OU fan base likes Young more and more. He’s a two-time starter in the NBA All-Star Game now, led the Atlanta Hawks on a playoff run — and clearly, his skills translate perfectly to the contemporary NBA, where he can shine with the elite of the elite. And that reflects extremely well on OU basketball.

The Oklahoma Standard lives on.

Time heals all wounds. Even at Oklahoma. Especially at Oklahoma.

How long will it be before OU fans smile again about Caleb Williams, and that pass he threw against Texas, or that run he made against Kansas, or that bowl performance he had against Oregon?

Maybe someday Williams can even come back to Norman for a reunion. They’ll show his highlights — he packed a lot of them into a short time — and he’ll wave to the crowd as they cheer and remember what was.

And lament what could have been.