Caleb Williams scouting report: Exploring the USC quarterback's strengths and weaknesses

A top-10 recruit and the second QB behind only Quinn Ewers, Caleb Williams took over for the struggling Spencer Rattler at Oklahoma in 2021. Over the whole season, he completed 64.5 percent of his passes for 1,912 yards, 21 touchdowns and just four INTs, along with another 442 yards and six TDs on the ground.

He decided to follow head coach Lincoln Riley to USC the following offseason, where he won the Heisman trophy and was a first-team All-American. He completed exactly two-thirds of his passes (333-of-500) for over 4,500 yards and 42 touchdowns, compared to just five picks, along with nearly another 400 yards and 10 scores on the ground

Caleb Williams scouting report

Physical make-up & arm talent:

• His arm is like a toy, where he can play around with angle-angles, release points and speeds, yet his mechanics operating within structure are very clean
• Shows some of the quickest hands you’re ever going to see, whether that’s throwing screens, hitting throws off RPOs – without having to get his base aligned perfectly – or aborting the fake on play-action
• Can really hit that back foot and rip the ball over the middle of the field – any type of curl/hook route, he throws with conviction, driving the ball with great velocity
• Features one of the prettiest deep balls in the country and formed an incredible connection with Jordan Addison at USC in 2022
• Yet, he can also throw the ball on a line with the best of them and you see some lasers, with his feet not being aligned accordingly at all
• Understands when to take speed off the ball and make it easy for his targets to catch and run with it
• Can shorten up his strides as he hitches up into the pocket and create enough force with limited space around him
• Has such a loose arm, where he just flicks it over his head whilst falling away on his back foot or shortens his release as he has to wait that extra beat for the receiver to come open with the rush coming in

Processing & decision-making:

• Every eligible is live at all times with Caleb, whether he’s operating time or he creates a secondary play
• Looks comfortable spreading out the offense with empty sets and working the underneath areas in the quick game
• Willing to take easy-access throws based on leverage or too much space in between defenders
• Can shorten his drop and zip in seam routes against shell coverages with too much cushion
• Maintains his composure with pressure around him, whether he has to spin out of a sack and knows where to go with the ball once he gets his head back around, or has to release it whilst running up into the pocket
• You consistently see a great base and the ability to pedal away from pressure points while staying ready to launch the ball
• What makes Williams’ success in ’22 truly insane is that he had the highest time-to-throw mark among all NCAA quarterbacks with 200+ dropbacks (3.24 seconds), yet was near the bottom of the list with a turnover-worthy play rate of just 1.8%, and he led the FBS in with an insane PFF passing grade of 78.9 when under pressure, with just 2.0% of those plays being labeled as turnover-worthy, despite his time-to-throw going up to a college-high 4.62 seconds
• In the 2023 season-opener against San Jose State, Williams had a play where he had to pick up a bad snap and was able to hit a receiver 45 yards from the launch point off his back foot almost with insane torque created through his hips

Playmaking in & out of the pocket:

• Has the vision for secondary and tertiary windows for throws to guys working across the field
• And he’s very sturdy back there, finding ways to slip off defenders and keep himself alive – He’s so strong in his lower half to shrug off potential sacks and still get the ball out
• Intoxicating play-maker, who makes college defenders look like they’re little kids a lot of times with the way he can dance around, wiggle himself out of muddy pockets and create stuff playground-style
• Some of the throws he can make whilst rolling to the left, snapping those hips around and drilling guys at the sideline to beat a trailing defender, are mind-boggling
• It almost feels like Williams is playing with the defense at times, as he hangs at the top of his drop until the last possible moment, trying to wait out a throw down the field, before shooting through a lane and still getting positive yardage
• Very shifty, making defenders miss with some impressive sideway jukes and incorporating some head-fakes, and you constantly see defenders stop their feet due to Williams giving them a little wiggle or head-fake and then being able to get around them
• Stronger than his frame would indicate, to take hits and power through tacklers when needed to get to the sticks
• Has that Patrick Mahomes quality, where he may not have the greatest timed speed, but he constantly looks faster than it and you saw some explosive runs when given a lane – showed that on his very first series once he took over for Spencer Rattler at OU against Texas and he wiggled through the line before hitting the jets for a 66-yard touchdown

Weaknesses:

• Last season, there weren’t a lot of “playing on time” and moments where he just took the lay-up for solid yardage, in favor of looking down the field and eventually switching to creation mode – because he could
• Doesn’t read the positioning on go routes and/or places the ball appropriately to the back-shoulder for his guys at times
• You love the ability to make the football field his own playground, but he’ll need to learn when he can’t put the game all on himself and try to make the impossible happen while being loose with holding onto the ball
• His grades under pressure absolutely plummeted in 2023 – which manifested itself in the worst way against Notre Dame – as he went from number one to 113th in PFF grade with no pressure (93.4) compared to under pressure (39.1)
• Takes too many hits he doesn’t have to and still should learn when to throw the ball away a couple more times, as his pressure-to-sack conversion rate went from 16.0% to 23.2% between his two years as a Trojan

Caleb Williams has been the slam-dunk number-one overall pick for the last two years and since I wasn’t around to actually evaluate Andrew Luck coming out of Stanford, he’s the best quarterback talent I’ve watched. Now, he’s certainly not perfect when it comes to the calibration of what he can get away with. However, from a physical perspective and his ability to translate information on the fly, it’s all there for him to become of one the elites.

Since we all expect him to land in Chicago, I think he’ll have more reliable targets, at least solid protection and maybe most importantly – when he steps back onto the field, the other team didn’t score on every single possession. At USC, he went 12-0 when his defense allowed less than 34 points and five of eight losses came when they allowed 43+.

Grade: Top 3