Lincoln Riley, teammates unconcerned about Caleb Williams' off game

With USC nestled at No. 6 in the national rankings, riding the momentum of a fourth quarter comeback on the road, the best defensive performance of the season and a perfect 4-0 record, there is but one real question lingering beyond the walls of Howard Jones Field.

Is everything OK with star quarterback Caleb Williams?!

Coach Lincoln Riley downplayed and dismissed any such concerns, spreading the culpability for the passing struggles Saturday throughout the collective offense and onto himself as well.

"He'll be fine," Riley said assuredly.

Williams' teammates certainly seem unconcerned as well.

"Yeah, lack of confidence has never been an issue for Caleb Williams," left guard Andrew Vorhees said with a smile Wednesday.

One of the few who hasn't chimed in on Williams' uncharacteristic struggles until the final moments of that dramatic 17-14 win at Oregon State -- as he completed just 16 of 36 passes (44.4 percent) for 180 yards -- has been the QB himself.

Williams was not made available after the game or for his usual Wednesday post-practice interview to offer his own perspective, but the pinpoint dart he tossed to Jordan Addison on his final pass of the game for the 21-yard go-ahead touchdown with 1:13 remaining would seem to rule out any physical issue.

Could it just be an outlier, an off game? Of course, and it's probably exactly that.

But, again, these are the No. 6-ranked Trojans. USC football matters again. And as noted, there's nothing else to scrutinize at the moment. So seemingly everyone who was available to reporters this week and at all relevant to the matter was asked for their input.

Is it a non-story? Very possibly.

It was Williams, though, who set the bar so high such that the accuracy issues Saturday in Corvallis, Ore., seemed so jarring.

After coming close to perfection through his first two games -- 39-of-49 passing (79.6 percent) for 590 yards, 6 touchdowns and 0 interceptions -- Williams managed to not only legitimize all the hype and those early Heisman Trophy odds but maybe even elevate expectations. Even when he threw 10 incompletions in the first half of the Week 3 win over Fresno State, he still evened out at 67.6-percent passing for 284 yards, 2 TDs passing, 2 more rushing and 0 turnovers in a commanding 45-17 win. Ultimately, who could complain about that?

His impressive accuracy throwing into tight windows, his velocity and timing with mostly new receivers, all paired with his elusiveness in the pocket and ability to take off and run for timely gains provided the engine for what looked like an unstoppable offense chugging down the tracks at a clip of 50 points and 520 yards per game through three weeks.

Then came the first 58 minutes Saturday night at Oregon State. USC didn't find the end zone until a Travis Dye rushing touchdown early in the fourth quarter and finished with 357 total yards.

Williams' performance for most of the game was identifiable only by his penchant for wiggling out of peril to avoid sacks and extend plays. The rest seemed like it surely couldn't be the same quarterback from weeks prior.

He repeatedly threw a tick behind his targets or too low -- including a big third-and-8 play in the fourth quarter with the Trojans protecting an ever-tenuous 10-7 lead, when Williams had a wide-open Addison cutting across the field but threw it down by his ankles for an incompletion.

But then came that final drive ...

With 4:35 to play, with USC now trailing 14-10 and the tension at its apex, the television broadcast caught a scene of Riley giving an extended pep talk to a visibly frustrated Williams sitting on the bench. Later, as they walked the sideline before the offense took the field, Riley turned back to his QB and said, "The time is now."

So much has been made about the relationship and trust the coach and QB have built that Riley's calm approach in that moment and Williams' subsequent response seemed like a scene right out of that narrative.

Asked earlier this week for insight on that conversation, Riley said his message was simple.

"Just that we had been here before. We had been in different situations in games together. He's been there before," Riley said. "Throughout all of his time, you learn when you get in those situations as a quarterback you can draw back to previous experiences, right? ... My encouragement to him was, 'Hey, this is one of those moments that we've talked about, and this is what we've got to do, and you got to get ready to do it.'"

"Looking at Caleb that drive, I had total confidence that whatever happened we were going to get it done, he was going to get it done," right guard Jonah Monheim said this week.

Said Vorhees: "I didn't really realize kind of what was going on in the game until after the fact and kind of [took] a step back and looking at the stats and everything. But never at one point during the game did he seem to be fearful or lose confidence. He was just a leader for us."

Williams got the offense moving on that final drive, starting with completions of 7 and 16 yards to Tahj Washington. His scramble and relentlessness to not be brought down on fourth-and-6 near midfield -- with help from the "Neilon Nudge" -- kept the drive and really the Trojans' hopes in the game alive.

And then five plays later Williams confidently threw the dime to Addison, looking more like his usual self while rifling the ball into a tight window with the safety closing in on the receiver down the right sideline.

"Give him credit. He didn't play nearly to the level that he expects himself to play, he didn't get coached very good, not a lot was going our way, but I think we both knew it was still right there for the taking thanks to the rest of our team and he went out and executed, the rest of the guys did, when it's not easy to do when maybe you don't quite have your A game that night," Riley said during his appearance on Trojans Live on Monday.

Addressing it again on Tuesday after practice, Riley reiterated that the passing struggles were more than the result of the QB.

"The deal with throwing, everybody thinks about like throwing is just the quarterback and a physical thing. If anything is out of sync, it can look a little bit off. Protection is off, routes a little bit out of sync, bad footwork, bad preparation, bad coaching. Like, anything can make it look a little bit off," he said. "And we had instances of all of those, and when you do that the offense is just going to be a tick off. And when you're a tick off against a good defense, it can look like it did the other night.

"So I think just refocusing us on operating the way we need to, coaching better, playing better. I know it sounds kind of boring, but it's the truth. We need to coach better, we need to prep our guys better, we need to play more precise. And I think we will."

If it had to do with the loud environment in Reser Stadium -- and it was loud -- and the consistent pressure Williams faced from Oregon State (the most he's seen all season), then maybe that's a question worth going back to before the next big game in a raucous road venue.

Or, if it was as Riley said, simply an aggregate breakdown of the passing game across the board, then it's merely something to track this week against Arizona State.

If it's not physical, and there's been no indication that it is, then it indeed probably isn't a big deal.

Nor really is Williams not speaking with reporters after practice Wednesday -- it merely maintains an aura of mystery over the whole thing without any insight from the man himself.

But of course, the QB can also answer all of these questions even more compellingly Saturday night in the Coliseum with his play, as seems to be the confident expectation of his coach and teammates.

Lastly, Riley was asked Tuesday if he diagnosed any issues with Williams' throwing mechanics during one of his admitted five rewatches of the nail-biting win.

Again, he dismissed any such concerns.

"No, no, just missed a couple throws. Just had one of those nights that he wasn't at his best throwing-wise. Saw things pretty well, had a couple missed decisions but just missed a few throws. That's going to happen, even the best of throwers. He's as gifted as they come there. You're going to have days like that," Riley said.

"... There were a couple things fundamentally, but there is every game. Even the games where we complete 90 percent of our passes, there's always a few things fundamentally that you go back and correct. ... [He] did a good job resetting and made some big boy throws when we had to. And that last throw, there ain't five dudes in the country that can make that throw, especially in that moment.

"So he'll be fine."