Caleb Williams on Recruiting Jalil Farooq, Being Named SIAA's No. 1 Prospect

Top prospect Caleb Williams is back with another blog, detailing recent workouts with Oklahoma target Jalil Farooq and reacting to his spot as SI All-American's No. 1 prospect.

Author:
Caleb Williams
Publish date:
Aug 31, 2020

Caleb Williams is the top quarterback prospect in the 2021 class with scholarship offers from elite programs coast to coast before committing to Oklahoma on July 4. He has agreed to give Sports Illustrated exclusive access into his world by chronicling everything from his experience as a high profile recruit to his home life and preparation for his senior season. This is 'All on the Line.'

Hey guys, welcome back to Caleb Williams: All on the Line.

I worked out a few times this week with Jalil Farooq, one of my good friends and hopefully he becomes one of my teammates at OU. I've basically been trying to do what I can to solidify him coming to OU and so that we can be teammates again. That's what I've been doing lately, making sure he knows I want to be his quarterback for the next three years so we can make a bunch of big plays throughout our years together at Oklahoma. We did some special things together when we were younger and history tends to repeat itself. Hopefully we can repeat that history in making a bunch of big plays with each other again.

Jalil is an all-around special athlete. Ever since we were playing together when he was younger, he's been playing both sides of the ball. On offense he played every position, on defense he played every position. He also played kick returner and punt returner, so you kind of put together the pieces yourself. He's just an all-around special athlete, a great friend and an all-around good guy.

[Williams and Farooq hook up on the first play of the following as 8th graders]

Hopefully we can get him to come to OU.

Classes have started, I'm dialed in to the few classes that I have. It's all online. Under COVID, they split up our schedules and made a slightly longer periods, but we don't have every class every day -- each class is an hour and ten or so.

It's my last year at Gonzaga and I'm feeling energized. Not necessarily to get this year over with but to get through this year and do it in a successful way. Even though we're online schooling, getting through it with my guys, my classmates, and just have a good year overall.

Lastly, I want to talk about being named SI All-American's No. 1 player in the nation. I'm very grateful to be named SI's No. 1. SI has former players and coaches that do the evaluations, so it just means a lot more. You always work to be No. 1. I don't think anybody ever would work for anything else, other than No. 1 if you have a chance at No. 1. I think everyone would want to be the best and try their hardest to be the best. Like I said before in a few other blogs, individual accolades are awesome, however it doesn't necessarily define who you are, obviously. But they're awesome because you know inside how hard you worked and to be named No. 1, it's kind of an individual accolade. It's good to be recognized in a positive way.

I wanted to let everybody know, really excited about this, I took some pictures for Sports Illustrated, the magazine, a couple weeks ago. It was at Gonzaga, in my gear, was super excited to do that. I wasn't sure what the final product was gonna be or look like so I didn't talk about it in prior blogs. But whoa! It was a 2 page spread (pgs. 18-19) in the September print edition of the magazine. I always got Sports Illustrated and Sports Illustrated for Kids when I was younger and I couldn't wait to get the latest copies every month. So it's kinda surreal and really pretty cool to see myself in there.

Hopefully I can get to the cover page one day like Russell Wilson.

[Williams with Wilson at camp, where he was referred to as 'Baby Russ']

I'm very grateful, like I said before. Very grateful to be able to be named No. 1 and to be in the magazine, like players that I've always looked up to.

Alright guys, here's a cool little stat. I've been doing All on the Line this for six months now. It hasn't felt like six months, it's been a blast. Your support makes it fun and easy. Thank you for supporting this and a big thank you to the people around me, helping me get this done.

Signing off, Caleb Williams: All on the Line. Stay safe, stay positive and make sure you wash your hands.

Twitter: @CALEBcsw

Instagram: ayeeecaleb