Musings from Arledge: On Wisconsin, Caleb Williams and Another Hackett

Wisconsin? Now we’re just getting silly. 

By the time you read this, I may already have been shown a fool. Caleb Williams may already have chosen Wisconsin or a gap year or a Tibetan monastery. And if so, I will take my cyberspace lumps. 

But, still, in the meantime, Wisconsin? That’s what you guys are worried about? You think Caleb Williams left Oklahoma so he could play in an offense too conservative for Woody Hayes? Why? Because he yearns to hand off to the tailback every down, which is just one of the reasons why Wisconsin is one of college football’s great quarterback hotspots. Or maybe you think Williams might decide to change positions and become a tailback. Wisconsin is a pretty great place for tailbacks. And cheese. Maybe he loves cheese. Or long winters.

Or maybe he can’t wait to entrust his professional future to a former tight end who has been coaching tight ends in the NFL, has never coached quarterbacks, and has never before been an offensive coordinator, just because it’s dad’s buddy. That seems reasonable. If Caleb Williams was a tight end. Or out of other viable options. There are only millions of dollars at stake.

Or maybe very little of what we’ve heard over the last few weeks makes any sense, and maybe the most obvious decision has been made or will be made, the one that was obvious from the beginning.  

This is a business decision for Williams, and a pretty important one. He left a top-five program where he was entrenched as the starter and was already a local hero. Why would he do that? The answer has always seemed obvious: because the draw was always Lincoln Riley, not Oklahoma. Caleb Williams went to Oklahoma to play for Lincoln Riley – he said so at the time – even knowing that Spencer Rattler had locked down the starting position and made himself a national star the previous year. He could have started on day one at lots of other places. Yet Williams said he would have walked on to play for Lincoln Riley. And Riley did him right, replacing his big-name starting quarterback with Williams, allowing Williams to become a star as a true freshman. Then Williams enters the portal shortly after Lincoln Riley leaves for USC. 

It doesn’t seem hard to connect the dots, people. So what went wrong?

Yes, we read breathless reports about how Caleb Williams was not even considering USC. Then we heard rumors of Auburn, Georgia, and LSU. All of which at least have something of value to offer a college football player, though proven QB development isn’t one of those things. Then we heard rumors about a program that doesn’t have much to offer an elite college football player (or America): UCLA, which hasn’t won anything in 40 years and has a coach on the hot seat. Then it was Wisconsin, which is a downright dreadful choice for a spread quarterback.

None of that made any sense. And where was the smoke to support these rumors of impending fire? I’ve seen pictures of Caleb Williams visiting USC. But, all this while, there have been no pictures or first-hand accounts of Williams visiting these other schools. There is also no indication that Lincoln Riley is pursuing other quarterbacks or that he tried to talk Jaxson Dart off the ledge. The other Williams transferred from Oklahoma to USC, apparently not concerned that there may not be a quarterback to throw to him.

Is there anything in this entire scenario that screams “Williams is going somewhere else!”? Of course not.

Now, listen, I’ll make a very important concession: People are weird. That’s a timeless truth, and it’s important to get that front and center before I say the rest of my piece. People are weird, and therefore they sometimes do strange and unexpected things – young people especially. I was 20 once and, by definition, something of an idiot. I made some questionable choices.

So Williams may yet surprise and, no, I don’t know what’s taking so long if USC is so obvious. I just know that choosing USC is obvious, and therefore I remain – without any inside knowledge whatsoever – convinced that Caleb Williams will be USC’s starting quarterback against Rice. Because this is a business decision, one involving millions of dollars, and Williams’ father (and no doubt other advisors) were involved. Nothing but USC has ever made any sense. The hyperventilating on USC message boards recently has become, frankly, very silly.

But not as silly as watching USC fans turn on Williams because he hasn’t committed on our preferred timeline. 

This is a circus. And I’m not talking about a circus directed by Caleb Williams. I don’t know what he’s waiting for, but I also don’t (yet) fault him or his family in any way for his handling of this situation. Williams hasn’t been making attention-seeking public statements. He has not been openly discussing Oklahoma or any schools he might be considering. He isn’t publicly committing to a school and then changing his mind. He isn’t walking around wearing a sandwich board with university hats hanging from it and promising that any minute he’ll don the headgear of the program he’s choosing. He has simply gone about his business, quietly, without seeking any public attention, and will make a decision when he thinks it appropriate.

And I’m fine with that. So far, Williams hasn’t damaged USC – or Wisconsin or UCLA – with any “delay.” Spring practice has not started. I’m quite sure he’ll be eligible for it wherever he chooses to go.* Unless it’s Tibet. Then I’m less sure. He’s fine. It’s all fine. 

* (Guys, he’s a star quarterback. The schools find a way. It’s not like a guy like Williams does college the way those students who really do need the degree to make a living do college. These guys get admitted to schools they would never get admitted to, they take classes designed to keep them eligible, and they make millions of dollars whether they get their degree or not. Stop comparing his college experience to yours. “I would have had a hard time with classes if I started three weeks late!” Yes, I’m sure you would have. And his situation is different than yours. He’s not you and he’ll be eligible. Stop pretending otherwise.)

Yes, it’s fine. But we’re not fine. For some reason, a significant number of USC fans have become angry at Caleb Williams for not committing earlier, as if our own uncertainty, post-Helton PTSD, and eagerness to land a top-notch quarterback impose upon Williams a duty to take our fragile mental health into account during this process. We act as if Williams owed it to us not only to commit to Lincoln Riley’s program but to do it quickly so we don’t have to worry. Doesn’t Caleb Williams know that stress causes wrinkles? Doesn’t Caleb Williams know that some of us are too distracted at work? Doesn’t Caleb Williams know how a man can hurt inside!? (Free WeAreSC T-shirt to anybody how identifies where that comes from.**)

** Just kidding. I don’t have that level of authority around here. 

Get a grip, my fellow Trojans. No recruit owes you a commitment to USC. No recruit owes you a decision on your timetable. This is a big decision, and there’s nothing wrong with being thoughtful and deliberate in making it. It’s not a crime to be silly and procrastinate in making it.

Some of the angst from my fellow Trojans seemed to be about the likelihood that NIL money might be part of the decision-making process. Is NIL a part of the process here? I don’t know, but it probably is, and it almost certainly should be. I’m not sure I want a quarterback who is worth seven figures on the open market just for saying okay and doesn’t consider those possibilities. I would distrust his decision-making. Bryce Young made a million dollars in NIL money before he did anything for Alabama. Caleb Williams, who has already proven himself to be an exciting, elite talent, can certainly generate some income for himself. 

Shouldn’t Caleb Williams be figuring that out? 

Williams plays a dangerous game; he is always one play away from an injury that could destroy his first-round dreams or even end his career.  

Williams plays an uncertain game; quarterbacks like Williams are never more than a few games from dropping on NFL draft boards. How many quarterbacks have we seen touted as high first-round picks who fall off of draft boards? Williams saw it first-hand with Spencer Rattler. USC fans have seen it with Kedon Slovis and Matt Barkley. All college football fans have seen it many times with many players. 

College football generates billions of dollars. Literally. Coaches, schools, and broadcasters have been making a fortune for many years. I suppose Caleb Williams could decide that he loves the idea of amateurism so much – such a beautiful philosophical notion, amateurism! Passing up money when everybody else is making boatloads of money so I can risk my health for free! – that he’d prefer to forego his market value in today’s college football market. I’ll just let the coaches, broadcasters, and universities make all the money. I don’t want to dirty myself by, you know, making a healthy income. 

But wouldn’t that be a foolish decision for him and his family? If Caleb Williams committed to USC immediately without considering NIL money – he should just decide he loves USC and football and ice cream and doesn’t want any money and he’ll wait until the NFL to make his millions like Morley Drury did! – and he got injured or benched, who is going to take care of his financial future? Who is going to help his family? It won’t be USC. Or the NCAA. Or the USC fans who find it so distasteful that Williams is trying to make money, even though practically all of us make decisions in our own fields of endeavor based at least part on compensation. I certainly make professional decisions based on money. Don’t you?

But temper tantrums over Williams’ desire to wait a few weeks before making a life-altering decision is only one of the issues that gets fans worked up these days. As USC is (successfully) prying quality football players away from other programs to rebuild its own roster, fans are rebelling against USC players who are entering the portal. He’s leaving?! He’s afraid to compete! I guess his word doesn’t mean anything!

Again, get a grip, guys. It’s not a crime for a player to decide he’d rather explore his options at other programs. How many of us have changed colleges? Changed jobs? Hell, half of the country has changed spouses – yet we think a college kid shouldn’t change programs and look for a better opportunity? 

Yes, maybe a kid is leaving because he’s not sure he will see the field in light of the talent on the roster. Why is that a problem? Maybe he overestimated his own talent when he chose USC. Maybe he really liked his old position coach who has now moved on. Maybe he broke up with his girlfriend and wants a change of scenery. Maybe he likes Wisconsin cheese and long winters. Who knows why guys leave. 

More importantly, why do fans take it as a personal insult? It’s not an attack on the fans, and it’s not that the player is morally or spiritually defective.

College football prospects don’t owe us anything when choosing a school. College football players don’t owe us anything when deciding whether to stay at a school. And while it would, I suppose, be nice if pre-signing-day verbal pledges meant a little more, it’s hard to get worked up even over a player’s decision to break one of these. Verbal pledges are non-binding; everybody knows that. And it’s not just players who renege on these pledges. Programs drop players when they land a better prospect and the class is filling up. Coaches promise a player to develop them at one school and then unexpectedly leave. Things happen. And it’s fine. 

Being a college football fan isn’t always easy. USC fans know that quite well, having spent many seasons in Claygatory. Many of us probably care more than we should. 

But it’s still just a hobby for us, the fans. For us, this is just fun. For the players, it’s their lives and their futures. Let’s get some perspective.

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Yes, I said it, college football is supposed to be fun. And it’s about to get much more fun for Trojans. USC’s roster has gotten dramatically better the last couple of weeks. With the recent WR, RB, and QB (?) additions, USC’s proven skill-position talent is first-rate. It is closer to Alabama’s and Ohio State’s than the rest of the Pac 12. Even if USC landed no further offensive players this offseason, the addition the Williams Boy(s), Austin Jones, Travis Dye, Brenden Rice, and Terrell Bynum as well as incoming freshmen C.J. Williams and Raleek Brown means that USC now has significantly more offensive firepower. 

And the offensive line is going to be good. Alabama good? Probably not. But good. With Lincoln Riley’s scheme and coaching, with five returning starters from a group that made big strides last year, and with the addition of Bobby Haskins, a quality player with a ton of ACC experience, USC’s offense is going to be very good next year. Scoring points will not be an issue.

There is still work to be done on the defensive side, but the secondary has seen a huge influx of talent, and the addition of linebackers Shane Lee (a former starter at Alabama as a true freshman) and Romello Height means that USC has started to address its most serious roster deficiency.  

I doubt Lincoln Riley is done. I expect that USC will still land a handful of 2022 starters between now and fall camp. Riley said he was going to turn over the roster and quickly get USC where it needs to be. He’s doing it. 

USC will be far more talented in 2022 than in 2021 and far better coached. And that’s just the beginning. If I can get over my around-the-clock fear that Caleb Williams might choose to go somewhere where he can frolic in a Winter Wonderland and hand the ball off 59 times a game, I’d probably be excited.

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And in other news, another franchise has decided to make a Hackett their head coach.

Oh boy. I think I know how this ends: with 22 players on the field – the entire defense and punt return teams – on a critical fourth down late in the game. And with his fingers pointed at the team’s talented but under-performing quarterback rather than at himself.

Is that fair? Probably not. Life isn’t fair, and Musings is less fair than much of the rest of life. 

And please believe me: I don’t have anything against Nathaniel Hackett. He’s probably a swell guy. I bet he loves puppies and pizza. He probably makes informed decisions at the voting booth, and I’d be willing to bet he knows the words to the chorus for American Pie. I’d let him on the PTA. I’d have no problem hiring him at my business.

But as a head football coach? I mean, we can hope that the acorn really did fall far from the tree … but isn’t that too big a risk? 

I sometimes get accused of having Helton Derangement Syndrome (often by people who took years to discover what I knew about Coach Warrior Ball a long time ago), but that’s not even my most disturbing psychological syndrome. I still have Hackett Derangement Syndrome, and that was 20 years ago! 

But, guys, please cut me some slack. Paul Hackett was the worst coach in USC history, obviously. He may even have been the worst head coach in the history of organized sport. Whoever left newly discovered fire and rode bareback on a saber-toothed tiger to shout instructions to participants in the very first caveman spear-throwing competition was a better coach than Paul Hackett. Guaranteed. I don’t need a historian’s help on that. As Fletch might put it, figuring out that Paul Hackett was a disaster wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes. Larry Holmes could have figured that one out. 

(Sorry, Larry. Your deductive reasoning skills might be first-rate, but I still have always loved the line.) 

Paul Hackett was so bad it should disqualify from coaching all of his offspring for the next six or seven generations. My Hackett Derangement Syndrome sometimes leads me to make deeply inappropriate and stupid analogies that I have a hard time controll … HIRING PAUL HACKETT’S KID AS HEAD FOOTBALL COACH!? WOULD ANY OF YOU VOTE FOR POL POT’S KID FOR PUBLIC OFFICE!?*** 

*** (I’m joking, people. Hackett was not Pol Pot or Ceausescu or Hitler or Idi Amin. I know that. You know that. We all know that. Just have fun with it. Or skip it. I don’t care.)

Sorry. Sorry for shouting and sorry for the ridiculous historical analogy. Although it’s a question worth asking. Would you need to hear Idi Amin Junior’s stump speech to know whether he should get your vote? Do we need to read Young Ceausescu’s platform to know if he’s your guy? Isn’t it just too big a risk? I mean Adolf Hitler literally ruined a first name and a type of facial hair for all time. No little Germanic child will ever again be named Adolf. Maybe no football coach should ever again be named Hackett. 

Sorry. I’ve completely fallen apart now. I’m making Hitler analogies, which are as stupid as they are ubiquitous on all cable news networks.

(By the way, just think about a politician making a common first name off-limits for generations, maybe forever. All of you who hate Trump or Biden still are still okay with a kid being named Donald or Joseph, and of course you are. It’s pretty remarkable when you think about it.)

What’s my point? I don’t even know if I have one anymore. But I think there might be two. First, for Denver fans, I’m sorry. Nathaniel Hackett shouldn’t be coaching your team. He should be a local golf pro. Or an accountant. Or a WeAreSC writer. Anything, really, just not a head football coach. There are some risks you just don’t take. And stop telling me I’m overreacting. If you weren’t around between 1998 and 2000, you don’t know. And if you were around, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  

And my second point, the more important one, though neither of them seems important enough to justify this tangential and immature tirade, is that we have much to be positive about, Trojan fans. Whatever happens with Caleb Williams – and you can all apologize for your foolishness on the WeAreSC message boards when Williams inevitably announces for USC – we are in a much better place today than we’ve been in the past. We have been freed from the dungeon. We have hope now. Our program is relevant now. We won’t lose eight games in a season now. 

Little darling, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter. It feels like years since it’s been here. But, if you relax and allow yourself to see it, here comes the sun. It’s all right.