Lincoln Riley reveals Caleb Williams was willing to walk-on at Oklahoma before scholarship

If you can believe this, Lincoln Riley and Oklahoma weren’t initially going to take quarterback Caleb Williams onto the roster.

Of course, the rest is history. Williams looked great as a freshman, followed Riley to USC, won a Heisman and is now projected to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.

But at Oklahoma, Williams wanted to do anything possible to get on the Sooners’ roster. He was willing to do it for free, or well, in college terms: walk-on.

“Yeah, we’re trying to give him some support,” Riley said of Williams’ NFL Draft prep on the Pat McAfee Show. “You know, we’ve been lucky enough, like you said to have a couple of guys go through this … You know, for Caleb, I think all happened really fast. I mean, you get out here, you win the Heisman. You know, in the last four years, he’s only played two and a half years of football. He’s still very young, kind of in his climb, but he’s excited about it. And he’s got a great mindset.” 

That’s where Riley revealed Williams was ready to show Riley he could play at the highest level before he even stepped foot on a college campus.

“The thing I’ve always appreciated about him is like, he’s always thinking about the next step,” Riley said. “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.”

Riley did acknowledge that Williams will have to adapt to the NFL though, like anyone else. But he said it knowing there were questions about his quarterback’s slight step back in 2023.

“I think his game will have to adapt because people, and we even saw even this year, people are going to try to defend him differently,” Riley explained. “And you guys know, everybody’s gonna try to get the book on what works against you and they’re gonna continue to try different things and so as a quarterback you’ve got to learn to find different ways to win, different ways to move the football and be productive.”

The NFL Draft is scheduled for April 25th through 27th in Detroit.