Everybody's picking Caleb Williams as their Player of the Year
By Evan Desai
Anyone who doesn't have Caleb Williams as their Player of the Year in college football is a fool. There's no question about that at this point. The USC Quarterback has been named the Maxwell Award winner, Walter Camp Player of the Year, AP Player of the Year, and the Heisman Trophy winner.
One that should also be paid attention to is the CBS Sports Player of the Year nod that he also picked up. The reason is because not only did he bring home the award from them, but CBS Sports' Chip Patterson broke down the 'Why' as well, and it really put Williams' season in perspective.
Not only did Patterson write about USC's seven-game win improvement with Williams in the fold, and bring up Williams' absurd statistical season, but he also brought up how much better Williams would perform when things were at their toughest:
"Williams was also at his best in some of the biggest games throughout USC's 11-win campaign. He threw for 381 yards and five touchdowns at Utah, threw for 470 yards and totaled three touchdowns at UCLA, totaled four touchdowns the next week at Notre Dame, and threw for 363 yards and three touchdowns against Utah in a Pac-12 Championship Game that may have looked quite different if he didn't pop his hamstring in the first quarter. In other words, Williams was great all year but also able to step his game up to another level when it mattered the most."
- Chip Patterson, CBS Sports
Caleb Williams was undoubtedly the best player in college football.
As Patterson wrote about, Caleb Williams led the country in touchdown passes with 37, and points responsible per game with 21.7. Patterson also listed that Williams was third in the country with 4,075 passing yards and seventh in pass yards per attempt with 9.1. Williams' 4,447 total yards this year was the most in Trojan history.
He added 10 rushing touchdowns to his 37 passing touchdowns too, and only threw a total of four interceptions. Doing this in just his first year with a new program (he transferred to USC this past offseason) after USC was coming off of their worst year in program history makes it all the more impressive.