Lincoln Riley recounts process of re-recruiting QB Caleb Williams to USC

For most of a month, USC fans waited -- pining, in some cases panicking -- as to when former Oklahoma quarterback Caleb Williams would announce his transfer destination, with every expectation that it was going to be USC to rejoin his former head coach Lincoln Riley, two of his former Sooners teammates who had also transferred in, and other familiar faces.

It took all the way until this Tuesday for the relief to set in for the fan base while the Trojans enjoyed stealing the sports news cycle for a while.

As to why it took that long to reach a seemingly obvious conclusion, well, that will be up to Williams to potentially shed light on one day.

Riley, speaking with reporters Wednesday on National Signing Day, wasn't very revealing about when exactly he knew his former star QB was now again his present star QB.

"We're certainly excited that Caleb chose to be here. Timeline of it, I don't know that I want to get into specifics, but he got in school or registered, whatever we want to say, late Friday and that was that," Riley said.

Of course, that wasn't all Riley said about reuniting with Williams, who was the No. 1 dual-threat QB and No. 6 overall national prospect in the 2021 recruiting class and who beat out projected Heisman candidate Spencer Rattler a few games into his freshman season at Oklahoma last year, seizing the job and showcasing why he might one day soon be in the conversation for college football's top prize.

Of the 13 transfers USC has added this offseason, Williams was the only one reporters asked Riley about on Wednesday, and the Trojans coach shared some further perspective on the process of re-recruiting the QB here to Los Angeles.

"Yeah, it's unique. It's not anything you ever expect to go through. It's difficult because you have all these players, Caleb included, that you coached, that you recruited and then all of a sudden one day you're coaching at a different institution and you can't contact these guys, other than the day I left you can't say bye. The rules don't permit you to do any of that," Riley said.

"So there's a long period of time where there's zero communication, and then all of a sudden Caleb and his family make the decision to jump into the transfer portal and we had a conversation shortly after that and I don't think we talked even one bit of football. It was just kind of like, long-lost friend. It was kind of good just to be able to reconnect and, yeah, I think we kind of took it step by step. There were some things certainly that he knew about myself, about a lot of the members on our staff that he had a positive experience with, and then obviously there's a lot of things new with a new program, a new city, a new university. I think the biggest thing was making sure this was going to be the right fit for us as a program, the right fit for him as far as his development as a player and for him as a student. I think the more we went through it, we had a chance to lay that all out, he and his family looked at the options and at the end of the day felt like USC was going to be the best."

Williams entered the transfer portal a few days after leading Oklahoma to a lopsided 47-32 win over Oregon in the Alamo Bowl, in which he completed 21 of 27 passes for 242 yards, 3 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. Riley had already left the Sooners for the USC job about a month earlier by that point.

Overall, Williams passed for 1,916 yards, 21 touchdowns and 4 interceptions, while also rushing for 442 yards and 6 TDs, taking over as the Sooners' primary quarterback for the final eight games of the season.

As Riley noted, the 6-foot-1, 215-pound QB from Washington, D.C., is in classes and will go through spring practice with the Trojans, but he already knows this offense -- and Riley already knows what he can do in this offense.

"He's a talented player. I felt that from when I got to see him in high school, I felt like he had all the tools to really be a good player, and I think most importantly he's a confident young man," Riley said. "He works really hard at his craft and he does a great job of bringing people together. He's got a great feel for people and a great feel for being a leader at a young age.

"He certainly was thrown into some unique situations for us as a true freshman last year and handled them well. I think he'll be a really positive member of this team. I think that's what he's most excited about right now is to just go to class, like to get with the guys, like to get back just in the flow of being part of a team and part of a university. That's what he loves to do, so he'll be a great addition to our quarterback room and to our team."

Perhaps the most revealing thing Riley did say Wednesday came when he was asked if there was any suspense on his end through the period between when former starting QB Jaxson Dart entered the transfer portal -- soon after it became clear USC was pursuing Williams -- and when Williams finally officially came aboard weeks later.

Riley's response served as a broader statement on how he and this program will be committed to bringing in the best talent, no matter the collateral cost.

"That's a little bit the nature of the beast in this day and age. We've had a lot of internal conversations about that, about how recruiting or signing one player can affect other players. We understand that's the nature of the beast. But having been in this position for a few years I've learned to, I don't try to project as much anymore. I'm just trying to build the best roster that we can at USC," he said. "And with the transfer portal right now and the fact that there's no guardrails, players can leave you virtually 365 days a year if they choose. And that's just part of how it is right now. So you can't predict all of that. And you can almost drive yourself crazy trying to.

"And so for me, my standpoint has been we're going to be honest with all parties involved, whether it's a current player on our roster, somebody that we're recruiting, about what we're doing, about future plans, try to be very transparent, but that we're not going to recruit or try to build our roster out of fear that people will leave. Just, you can't operate that way and we're not going to. So we're going to build the best roster we can with people that want to be here and believe in the vision and believe in this program. And so excited the way that it played out."