If Caleb Williams is gone, the ‘climb’ for USC has fallen back to base camp

Williams' farewell after UCLA-USC Saturday felt awfully like a goodbye-for-good, and if so, head coach Lincoln Riley will face a slew of tests in program-building.

LOS ANGELES – This was a strange setting for a finale, rain falling softly across Caleb Williams’ face Wednesday night, campus pitch-black beyond the turf at USC’s practice field.

How do you want to be remembered? he was asked, the quarterback setting his jaw for a moment.

“I honestly haven’t thought of anything like that,” Williams said, “but I’d say a player that went out there and gave his all every play, every chance he got.”

“Obviously as a player,” he continued later, “you want to go down and try and be one of the best and greatest players ever.”

It was clear, though, on Saturday, that he’d thought about that legacy. Williams walked into the Coliseum pregame and turned, to soak it all in. He hopped across the grass postgame, holding his hands up in acknowledgment under the arch of the peristyle, even after a 38-20 loss to UCLA.

And then he was gone, declining to speak to media postgame. And gone, maybe, for good.

“No matter what happens going forward,” Riley said on Thursday, “it’s certainly been a tremendous ride.”

The ride sure felt like it ended against UCLA in a game where USC showed little fight and little heart and dropped to 7-5 in a season that began with championship hopes. Williams hasn’t made a clearly expressed decision as to his NFL future, but returning for a third year as a Trojan could be career suicide – remember Matt Leinart? – in a program that has far more questions than answers. And the reality of USC’s future, then, has become clear.

In games across his two-year career where Williams accounted for more than three touchdowns, USC has gone 14-3.

In games where he’s totaled three touchdowns or less, USC has gone 4-5.

If Williams has not been spectacular, this program has been mediocre for two years of Riley’s tenure. And without his prodigy under center, with the defensive cleaning-house that’s already begun and will only continue, this will become the most important offseason of his coaching life.

So a never-ending scroll unravels before a move to the Big Ten, where life will only get harder, the checklist staggering:

Connect on a home-run hire at defensive coordinator, and rearrange staff according to his vision

• Throw money at the best quarterback that hits the transfer portal, or risk rebuilding around backup Miller Moss and unproven freshman Malachi Nelson (as Riley said Thursday, “I don’t know that I’m in a position to say, yes, we will go after a portal quarterback. And don’t know that I’m in a position to say that we wouldn’t either.”
• Piece together some sort of offensive line – from untested returners, transfers, and a recruiting cupboard not exactly laden with talent – that can hold up without Williams’ scrambling magic
• Reconfigure a defensive line that will lose two of its most impactful players, in Jamil Muhammad and Solomon Byrd, with little help besides Atlanta edge Kameryn Fountain on the way in the ’24 class.

When asked postgame Saturday if he felt major changes to USC’s culture and personnel were necessary to move the program in a better direction in his third year, Riley pointed first at the removal of Alex Grinch, then expanded big-picture.

They entered this year, though, closer to the peak of the mountain than they end it. The championship window, if Williams has gone, has slammed shut. To the outside eye, this has not been a climb, in Riley’s second year.

This has been a freefall, all the way down to base camp, needing to start the trek over again without their guide behind center.