Lincoln Riley addresses Caleb Williams' media silence

Since his rough game against Oregon State last week, USC quarterback Caleb Williams hasn’t met the media despite the victory. The Trojans canceled his availability on Wednesday ahead of this week’s matchup against Arizona State, and Lincoln Riley explained why.

Williams went 16-for-36 for 180 yards and a game-winning touchdown pass to Jordan Addison to help USC come back to defeat Oregon State 17-14 and improve to 4-0. He didn’t take questions after the game, nor did he meet with reporters on Wednesday during the scheduled availability. Riley attributed Williams’ postgame absence to “a break” before confirming he’ll be back on schedule going forward.

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“We gave him a break after the game. Brought a couple different people in there,” Riley said during his Thursday Zoom call. “We’ve made him as available as any player in the country probably in our time here. He’s done a lot of different media obligations and I think has went, honestly, above and beyond probably the normal call of a college athlete.

“Yesterday, had a couple things going on, so didn’t do it. But that won’t affect his media availability going forward. He’s had a good week. He’s practiced well. Very engaged with his teammates. Business as usual.”

This year — his first after entering the transfer portal — Williams has completed 80 of 122 passes for 1,054 yards and nine touchdowns. He will try to get back on track this week when the Trojans take on Arizona State at home Oct. 1 at 10:30 p.m. ET.

During the Oregon State game, Riley spoke with Williams and gave him some encouragement amid the struggles. He shared what he said after the victory.

“Just said we’ve been there before,” Riley said. “These games, you can’t — everybody wants to define like, how they’re going to go before the game’s ever played. You’ve just got to go play. Some days you’re not going to be at your best. Some things are not going to go your way, and how you respond in those moments is what separates you. I just reminded him, we’ve been in a few of these when he was younger, and we talked about throughout the offseason, about how we wanted to handle it.

“Him doing what he did, and our guys — it’s not just him obviously, but our offense doing what they did on that last drive showed a lot of grit and determination, to match what we were doing on the field defensively.”

On3’s Steve Samra contributed to this report.