Lincoln Riley responds to increased expectations with Caleb Williams addition

Lincoln Riley hasn’t wasted a second assembling a staff and roster laden with talent that can hit the ground running in 2022.

While there’s been plenty of massive news coming out of USC since the former Oklahoma Sooners’ front man took the Trojans’ head coaching job, the latest splash may be the biggest yet.

Last week, Caleb Williams — rated as the top quarterback in the transfer portal who played under Lincoln Riley at OU– made it official and signed to play for USC under the coach he’s been with all along.

In the press conference on national signing day, Riley was asked if landing Williams changes expectations for the USC program in 2022.

“Oh they haven’t changed,” Lincoln Riley said without hesitation.

“They will have changed on the outside. But I’ve told you guys from day one, our expectations will never change. You don’t bring in a staff like this and then all of a sudden set the bar low. You don’t do that, the bar should never be low at USC. This is one of the best programs of all time and we feel like we have really assembled a championship staff.

Regardless of one player, one recruiting class, those things will never cause our expectations to fluctuate. Our expectations were high the day we got here, and they will be high every single day we are coaching. That will not change.

Lincoln Riley gives inside look at recruiting Caleb Williams to USC

Caleb Williams’ decision to transfer from Oklahoma to USC was not only big for the Trojans, but big for college football. Wednesday, Lincoln Riley shed some insight into the process of recruiting Williams to Los Angeles.

Riley originally recruited Williams to play at Oklahoma out of Washington, D.C. He starred as a freshman, taking over for Spencer Rattler at quarterback and helping lead Oklahoma to an Alamo Bowl berth.

After the season, Riley left Oklahoma for USC. In January, Williams entered the portal — and the speculation began.

Williams announced his commitment to the Trojans on Tuesday, reuniting him with Riley. The new USC coach acknowledged how “unique” the process was and what went into getting Williams to join him in California.

He talked about how tough it was not having conversations with any of his former Oklahoma players after he left before getting into how it felt to re-connect with Williams once he entered the transfer portal.

“I don’t think we talked even one bit of football,” Riley said. “It was just kind of like [a] long, lost friend. It was good just to be able to re-connect. We kind of, I think, took it step by step. There were some things, certainly, that he knew about myself, about a lot of the members on our staff that he had a positive experience with.

“Then, obviously, there’s a lot of things new with a new program, a new city, a new university. And I think the biggest thing was making sure that this was going to be the right fit for us as a program, the right fit for him as far as his development as a player and for him as a student.

“I think the more we went through it, we had a chance to lay that all out and he and his family looked at the options and at the end of the day, felt like USC was going to be the best.”

Lincoln Riley is reunited with his young, ultra-talented quarterback. Suddenly, the Pac-12 got a heck of a lot more interesting.