COLUMN: Against OSU, Oklahoma QB Caleb Williams Can Still Prove Lincoln Riley Right

If the Oklahoma coach's fabulous freshman can beat the Cowboys' ferocious defense, he'll completely validate Riley's midseason gambit.

STILLWATER — Lincoln Riley doesn’t have just a grand body of work from which to study trends. Not yet.

But rare is the occasion when the Oklahoma coach has stuck his neck out for a player like he has this year.

On Saturday night, in a top-10 showdown with Oklahoma State, Caleb Williams can completely validate Riley’s unexpected midseason quarterback change.

Caleb Williams :: John E. Hoover / SI Sooners

Williams can prove Riley right — and prove his unusual mettle as OU’s wunderkind QB — with a big performance against the Cowboys.

No. 7-ranked OSU is a 4.5-point favorite going into this year’s Bedlam clash at Boone Pickens Stadium. The Cowboys (10-1) boast one of college football’s most ferocious defenses and an offense that has grown behind a steadily improving offensive line, a hardy running game and an experienced quarterback of their own who’s been playing up to his potential lately.

The Oklahoma defense will be taxed to contain an OSU offense that’s averaging 41 points in its last four games.

But it’s the Oklahoma offense — led by an 18-year-old quarterback who didn’t even play high school football as a senior — that faces the tallest task on Saturday.

It goes without saying that Williams needs to be better than he was the last two weeks. Against the rugged defenses of Baylor and Iowa State, Williams completed less than 50 percent of his passes (17-of-36) for just 114.5 yards per game with one touchdown and three interceptions.

Caleb Williams pre-Baylor :: John E. Hoover / SI Sooners

After leading the nation in passer efficiency rating against the likes of Western Carolina, Kansas State, Texas, TCU, Kansas and Texas Tech, Williams posted back-to-back ratings of 94.0 and 92.3 against the Bears and Cyclones.

By comparison, Spencer Rattler had just one game this season with a rating lower than 133 before he was benched against Texas, and that rating was in the Texas game, where his rating was 102.2 — not good, but still higher than Williams’ last two performances.

It was that Texas game where Riley assessed Rattler’s turnover tendencies, said enough is enough and handed the reins over to Williams.

Riley passed those reins back to Rattler for two series in Waco, but Rattler couldn’t provide a spark and that game was soon lost.

No. 10-ranked Oklahoma (10-1) has its back is against the wall. The Sooners can earn a spot in the Big 12 Championship by beating OSU, but they can also get in if Baylor suffers a loss to Texas Tech earlier in the day.

Leaving one’s postseason fate to an upset bid by the Red Raiders would be folly. So OU has smartly prepared all week to win the game in Stillwater.

Now it’s up to Williams. For two straight weeks, he has struggled to find receivers and, except for one resolute keeper at Baylor that went 74 yards for a touchdown, he’s struggled to get free in the running game. Too many times he’s dropped back in the pocket and simply not known what to do — throw, scramble or just take off.

Spencer Rattler (left) and Caleb Williams warm up ahead of the Baylor game :: John E. Hoover / SI Sooners

“A lot of our guys have been able to go through that (growth process) at different times,” Riley said. “Spencer had had moments of that last year, especially in the first half of the year. I mean, go look at the success level of Baker (Mayfield) and Kyler (Murray)’s first year in college. I don't I wasn’t here, but it wasn’t what it became. And so this guy’s, you know, he's learning like those guys did. He's learning on the fly.”

The question now is if that trend continues on Saturday night against an OSU defense that is both sound and fury — if Williams remains paralyzed with indecision, or if he continues with the careless turnovers — will Riley go to Rattler again?

Or has Riley permanently attached OU’s offensive fortunes to his true freshman quarterback?

“I still have a lot of confidence in him,” Riley said, “because when he — and we as an offense around him — have played at a high level, we've had a stretch of games, a set of games since he's been the starter where we've played as high a level as we've ever played.

“Now, have we had some bouts of inconsistency? We have. But my confidence comes from the progress that he's making that I see on Saturdays and behind the scenes.”

Riley continues to say the Sooners are “close” to playing better as a group, and if Williams gets better blocking up front and if his receivers run better routes and if they catch the football better and if he gets better coaching, then Williams’ own level of play will rise, too.

If all that happens, Oklahoma can win Saturday. And if that happens, then Williams will have validated his coach’s decision to bench the preseason Heisman Trophy favorite in favor of a teenager who hadn’t played a real game in almost two years.

Otherwise, Oklahoma — a trendy preseason pick to win the national championship, remember — will finish the regular season with two losses for the second year in a row, and the Sooners' string of six straight Big 12 titles will end with a whimper, and Riley will have made a daring quarterback change for nothing, really.

Riley acknowledges that his expectations of Williams remain high. But not necessarily for the spectacular plays. Rather, Riley wants Williams to produce more routinely successful plays — 4-yard gains after reading the edge defender, or checkdowns on second-and-short. Don’t overthink what the defense is doing just and make plays that are in your arsenal.

“You don't play behind the chains,” Riley said, “you get drives off to a good start — kinda all that that goes into playing really good ball. Then your explosives come from that. That's kinda the focus with him. Again, it's all so new. He's learning. He's taking it in, so I don't know that in a sense that it's overthinking.

“I’m just kinda watching him grow. I'm watching him learn, watching him go through these different experiences and each time, he comes out of it knowing a little bit more, learning a little bit more — ‘How would I handle this if it comes up again, next time I get in this situation, next time I see this defense, or next time this happens on this play?’ “

As bitter a pill as Baylor was for Williams to swallow, it made him better. As firm a wall as Iowa State’s defense was for Williams, it made him stronger. Adverse experiences foment growth more than riding on Easy Street does.

“And every one of them's invaluable,” Riley said. “… It builds confidence and it's kinda just building a library inside of him where he understands it and knows how to react and doesn't have to think, so he’s just progressing. He's learning.

“But the flip side of that is, I do expect him to play very well. He's given me a lot of reason to expect that right now.”