Did Lincoln Riley just tell us when Caleb Williams' USC decision is coming?
By Evan Desai
Caleb Williams has been widely speculated to be transferring to the USC football program, and Lincoln Riley may have just dropped some more intel on his decision.
According to Riley, the USC Trojans “have a few more on the transfer side and a couple from the high school side who may decide to enroll early.” (Credit to Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated.)
This is big, because SC has already acquired 12 transfers through the portal in this 2022 class, and already has the No. 1 transfer portal class in the country (247Sports). Why Riley's comments about enrolling "early" are notable is because the final date to add spring courses or register in the spring is this Friday, January 28th for USC. Does this mean that Caleb Williams is one of the "few more on the transfer side" that Riley is talking about?
If so, Caleb Williams very well could potentially follow Lincoln Riley and transfer to USC this week.
Other than Caleb Williams, it's unclear as to who Lincoln Riley could be talking about as transfers to USC. One of their biggest transfer options was DL Mekhi Wingo who just transferred to LSU. Many of the other suspected transfer targets, such as Oregon RB1 Travis Dye, and electric Oklahoma WR Mario WIlliams, have already made the move to SC.
It's unclear as to who will commit from the high school side as well, although SC will likely want to add some more bodies to what their class is right now. While they have an extremely talented class that boasts the highest average recruit ranking in the conference and it's not close (247Sports), their overall ranking places just ninth in the conference and 62nd nationally due to them only having eight commits.
If SC does indeed land a few more significant pieces that include Williams, one would have to imagine the expectations for Riley's first year may be raised. After all, WIlliams averaged 9.1 yards per attempt and 5.6 yards per carry under Riley's offense last year. He scored 27 total touchdowns (just four picks) after not even being the starter until the second half of the season.