Caleb Williams reveals his mindset as the page turns toward 2023

Caleb Williams and the USC Trojans are probably going to be all business going into next season.

After an 11-3 campaign, USC fell short of the team’s ultimate goals for a Pac-12 title and a national title, but Lincoln Riley and company might have the right stuff for next fall. Williams certainly feels that way as he started to detail his mindset following the Cotton Bowl.

“Very grateful,” Williams said of his first year at USC. “Great season. Everybody that’s coming back, get ready. Everybody that’s not, really appreciate you.” 

The Trojans star quarterback pointed out how USC turned around instantly once he, Riley and others arrived in Los Angeles. He also made a bit of a prediction.

“You can’t take away from a team that was 4-8 and now to 11-3,” Williams said. “Fans obviously started (coming out), we started having more people come to the games and support us and showing out. So much love to them and it’s gonna be better next year.”

Williams won the Heisman Trophy this season and finished the year with 4,537 yards, 42 touchdowns, five interceptions and a 66.6% completion percentage. He added 382 rushing yards and 10 rushing touchdowns.

However, expectations grew from winning the conference to winning a national championship in a short span under Riley. He discussed what USC needed to take that next step following the heartbreaking loss to Tulane.

“Well, it’s a long answer to that,” Riley said. “You know, you come in here day one, and you’re trying to, in a lot of ways, just starting to teach these guys how to compete and what championship habits look like. I mean, you’re starting from the complete ground floor on everything. We’ve learned a lot of things, we’ve grown in a lot of ways and that’s why we’re at this game and why we’re an 11-win team and we’re two plays different from being who knows where?”

Riley pulled back and said there was plenty of work to be done before USC could talk about being in the position to win a national title.

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“But there’s still so much more to go to be in that position where you close out a conference championship game or you win a big bowl game like this or win a semifinal game or win a national championship, right,” Riley said. “It’s a lot of us in that staff from, I’ve seen it and we’ve won, it’s been a lot of times. We’ve made just a couple of more than the other one and a half times when we haven’t won and it’s been right there. 

“That’s what’s painful about it … I think we’ve made a lot of big jumps this season to get over that hump. (But it’s) equally as challenging as just getting this thing started like we all did this year. And so it’ll be a big challenge.”