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Caleb Williams reveals what led to strong second half for USC offense

Alex Weberby:Alex Weber•09/19/22
Quarterback Caleb Williams #13 of the USC Trojans warms up prior to the game against the Fresno State Bulldogs at United Airlines Field at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on September 17, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Gett
USC quarterback Caleb Williams (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images)

USC only had three scores in the entire first half against Pacific Northwest foe Fresno State. Now, scoring 21 points in a half of football is still pretty dang good by most standards. But given the Trojans’ advantage in the talent department and the offense they’ve played so far this season, USC is expected to pour it on a bit more.

So in the second half, they did. The Trojans found the end zone three more times in the second half and then added a field goal, giving them 45 total points to the day. Far outmatching Fresno’s measly 17 points in comparison.

What clicked in the second half for Caleb Williams and co.? Take it from the QB1 himself, who said in a press conference that the offense was slightly out of sync in the second quarter because of a series of small mishaps. However, the unit was able to clean things up in the second half. Here was Williams:

“Yeah, second quarter, it was small mistakes. Very very small mistakes. And those small mistakes lead to stalling on drives, getting pushed back, having a sack where I should have just dirted the ball or threw the ball out of bounds. We could have got a field goal or something like that, you know. Just really small mistakes.

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“Then we went to halftime. We collected ourselves. Like coach said, we wanted to play a full game and that’s been our whole thing this whole week. Trust it, trust it and trust it. So that was that was the main goal. That was really the main goal throughout the week, main goal when we went into halftime. Also, it was — be the hunters, not the hunted — was our mentality. And so, we just came out fighting, came out shooting, Yeah, we had a we had a pretty good third quarter I think.”

They sure did. Two touchdowns on their third-quarter drives coming out of the halftime break. A worthy response after a far-from-perfect first half. And at the end of the day, the Trojans downed the Bulldogs by four touchdowns to move on to 3-0 and stay right at No. 7 in the AP Poll. Lincoln Riley, Caleb Williams and the USC offense are as advertised.