Caleb Williams addresses hamstring injury, reveals if it impacted him in Cotton Bowl

Caleb Williams suffered what Lincoln Riley described as a “serious” hamstring injury in USC‘s losing Pac-12 Championship effort against Utah. Even so, he suited up and played for the Trojans just a few weeks later vs. Tulane in the Cotton Bowl, also producing a poor result. A tough two-game stretch for the program to close out Year One of Riley.

There never seemed to be a doubt that Williams was going to play on Monday. He said things felt fine pregame and doubled down during a postgame interview. No limitations or discomfort coming from the quarterback’s end.

“Nope, not hampered,” Williams said on the injury. “Felt fine.”

Even Riley admitted there was “no way” Williams was not going to be on the field against Tulane. Last playing on Dec. 2, the USC training staff had some time to make their star quarterback was leading the team nearly a month later.

“Well, he’s not 100% but he’s made some nice progress,” Riley said pregame. “We were fortunate that we had the amount of time that we had after the previous game for him to recover. Our training staff has done a great job of working with him to try and get him ready.

“Listen, he’s a competitor. I mean, there was no way that he was not gonna play in this game.”

Williams still played like his normal self at times, producing magical plays for the Trojan offense. He finished with 462 yards, five touchdowns, and an interception while completing 71.2% of his throws on 52 attempts.

Only 10 yards on four carries was a bit out of the ordinary for Williams but nonetheless, he played like somebody who had just won the Heisman Trophy. However, USC still found itself on the losing end and severely disappointed at AT&T Stadium.

Williams will be thankful he has one more season to come back and redeem himself from a team perspective. The goal for him was to always make the College Football Playoff, even if the personal accolades are nice.

USC will open its 2023 season on Aug. 26 with a Week 0 game against San Jose State. Williams will have plenty of time to fully recover his hamstring and begin preparing for what should be his final season in college football. He’s going to be a man on a mission, hoping to get the Trojans back on the national stage.