USC Football: Lincoln Riley Addresses Caleb Williams Quarterback Replacement Options Next Year

The 2023 USC Trojans season ended in misery. A season that was supposed to see the school's first college football playoff appearance finished with only seven wins, losing five of their last six games.

It was a 180 turn from what many expected them to be, and now head coach Lincoln Riley and his staff are left to pick up the pieces as they transition to the Big 10 conference.

A ton of eyes will be on Riley and how he will respond after this disappointing season, we have all just witnessed. A lot will be on his plate, almost too much, including trying to find USC's next quarterback after the implied departure of Heisman-winning quarterback Caleb Williams.

It's the worst-kept secret that Williams will leave for the NFL next season. Although he hasn't officially declared, it'll be surprising if he returns for another year in college. If he does leave for the NFL, Riley will have a lot of thinking about who his next QB will be; however, if you ask him right now, which USC insider Antonio Morales did, he doesn't know quite yet.

“I don’t know that I’m in a position to say, ‘Yes, we would go after a portal quarterback,’ and don’t know I’m in a position to say we wouldn’t either. There’s a lot left to transpire. We’ve got a guy in our room who is going to have to make a decision here at some point if he wants to enter the draft or not. We have a couple of quarterbacks in our room who have developed in our program but you always know, this day and age, especially at that position, you never can assume anything."

(Per Lincoln Riley via The Athletic)

It's only a matter of when, not if, Williams will declare for the NFL Draft.

USC has options at their disposal; they could go in-house and go with redshirt sophomore Miller Moss, who served as the backup this season, or they can go with their 2023 five-star QB recruit, Malachi Nelson.

Or they can go the route they took with Caleb and pick up someone from the transfer portal. It's all talk right now, but Riley said he will play it by year as we're in the age of player movement.

“There are 10 different combinations of what can happen here. So I think you’re always ready to be able to react to it and having a plan ready so when this happens or when that happens, you kind of know what your next step is. There’s still the opportunity to sign somebody in high school. There’s an opportunity to go grab a transfer, and there’s certainly an opportunity where we may not make any moves and stand pat where we’re at. So we’ve got to see how it unfolds here in the next several weeks and be ready because there’s a lot of different things that can happen.”

(Per Lincoln Riley via The Athletic)

Now, we just sit and wait for the end of the college football season to see what USC's next move will be. It will be an interesting and vital off-season for your Trojans.