Caleb Williams Jason Parkhurst-USA TODAY Sports

Over his three years playing college football, Caleb Williams emerged as one of the most dominant players in the country and a top NFL Draft prospect. But before that, he was considering playing his college football as a walk-on.

During an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show this week, USC Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley – who also coached and recruited Caleb Williams at Oklahoma – revealed that Caleb Williams was planning to walk on at Oklahoma if the team did not offer him a scholarship.

“The thing I’ve always appreciated about him is like, he’s always thinking about the next step,” Riley said on the show, according to On3. “And it’s always the big picture. You know, at Oklahoma, there was a time in the beginning where we weren’t going to take him and he said, well fine coach, I’ll just walk on. That’s his mindset. Like it’s always about that next step. And so he’s ready for this. He’s excited for it and we’re hoping he ends up in a great situation.”

This obviously would have been a pretty shocking and unprecedented move given that Williams was a five-star prospect rated as the top quarterback in the 2021 recruiting class. But ultimately, Williams didn’t have to do that as he was awarded a scholarship by Oklahoma anyway.

[On3]