Top recruiting analyst has Caleb Williams interested in weaker LA program over USC

While the buzz around Caleb Williams' potential transfer was initially pointing to USC football, four candidates have emerged ahead of the Trojans according to 247Sports national recruiting analyst Brandon Huffman.

As posted above, Huffman has the top four teams in contention to be LSU (which would be the wrong move for Williams), Auburn (which would also be the wrong move for Williams), Miami (which would again be the wrong move for Williams), and somehow UCLA (which would be an even worse move for Williams).

Look, if Williams chooses LSU, a school with minimal success from QBs historically, or Miami who also has minimal success from QBs historically, or Auburn who's in the same boat, I will at least understand it. Those schools, while not being known for consistent quarterback success, are easily tier two programs in college football. They may not be blue bloods (although LSU and Miami have cases), but they're historically good-to-great college football programs.

If he chooses UCLA, however, I have no choice but to question his judgement.

If Caleb Williams chooses UCLA over the USC football program, he would be making a very poor decision.

If Caleb Williams is coming to LA, he needs to be playing with the USC football program, and not a very uninspiring UCLA program.

Williams needs to play with the coach he loves so much that he said he'd walk-on for in new USC Football Head Coach Lincoln Riley. He needs to play with Riley, who got a very high amount of production from Williams last year. This is the same QB who was in the Heisman discussion for the majority of the time he was the OU quarterback last year, despite not even being the starter over there until the sixth game.

Williams averaged nine yards per attempt under Riley this past season, tossing 21 touchdowns and only four picks. Let's also not forget that he averaged 5.6 rushing yards per carry for 442 yards and six rushing TDs. Why break something that doesn't need to be fixed, and pass on the coach he knows he's going to succeed with?

Williams' father made it clear that the most important factor in making this decision is going to be which program can best prepare Caleb for the NFL:

Therefore, Williams needs to be playing for the program who has seen each of their last seven starting QBs (and one of their backups in that time), all get drafted to the NFL with four of them going in the top ten. (This of course is currently excluding JT Daniels and Kedon Slovis who have not come out for the draft yet.) UCLA QBs have had a legitimately terrible resume compared to that.

Williams doesn't need to waste his time playing for a disappointing UCLA program with quite the lackluster history of success. Let's compare the two programs. On the left and bolded is USC, on the right is UCLA, and in parentheses is their all-time ranks:

11 National Championships (2nd)----1 national championship (32nd)

37 conference championships (5th)----17 conference championships (25th)

6 Heisman winners (4th)----1 Heisman winner (14th)

517 NFL Draft picks (2nd)----327 NFL Draft picks (15th)

83 First Round NFL Draft picks (2nd)----36 First Round NFL Draft picks (16th)

.695 all-time record (8th)----.577 all-time record (38th)

Williams doesn't need to waste his college football career with the Bruins, who have a coaching staff that's catastrophically worse than the staff USC has assembled this offseason.

This is a massive decision for Williams and his career. He's only transferring because Riley took a new job, so he needs to take this decision seriously and go play for that coach while he has the chance. What he doesn't need to do is go play for random football programs with nothing to offer like UCLA.