Oklahoma football: A Sooner from QBU will be in Heisman hunt again in 2022
By Chip Rouse
For the past six years, an Oklahoma football quarterback has been a Heisman Trophy candidate at some point in the season.
And in three of those years, a Sooner quarterback either won the coveted top individual prize in college football or finished as runner-up in the final voting.
Many college football experts associate that extraordinary run of success in quarterback performance at Oklahoma with Lincoln Riley, who has become known as the quarterback whisperer of college football and with it the designation of Oklahoma as the new Quarterback U of the college game.
It is true that Riley had a direct hand in the recruitment of Spencer Rattler and Caleb Williams and perhaps with the one-year rental of Jalen Hurts, but it was the Bob Stoops-coached Oklahoma team that was the primary lure for Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray’s to transfer to OU.
And let’s not forget that there were two other Oklahoma quarterbacks (Jason White in 2003 and Sam Bradford in 2008) who collected a Heisman Trophy during the Stoops’ coaching reign in Norman, plus a third (Josh Heupel on the Sooners’ 2000 national championship team) who was a runner-up.
The point of this is: Oklahoma was able to recruit and develop some pretty darn good quarterbacks before Riley came to Oklahoma and the expectation is that will continue to do so now that he’s gone.
Since 2000, 18 quarterbacks have been awarded the Heisman Trophy, including four who were Sooners.
This past season, Oklahoma was in the unusual position of having two different quarterbacks as prime Heisman candidates as different points in the season. The season began with Rattler, coming off an outstanding 2020 season, as the preseason favorite to win the Heisman. But Rattler struggled in the early going and was benched midway through the season and replaced by Williams.
After leading a remarkable comeback win over Texas in the Red River Showdown and a second terrific performance the following week in a 20-point win over TCU, Williams’ name emerged on the Heisman watch list.
After a tough outing against lowly Kansas and another rough outing and an OU loss at Baylor, Williams had faded out of Heisman consideration, but the skill level and talent is clearly there. All that’s been missing in this, Williams’ true freshman season, is the experience you gain from playing regularly for more than half a season.
Williams has not made a definitive decision on whether he will remain at Oklahoma for the 2022 season, but he does plan to play in the Sooners’ Alamo Bowl game on Dec. 29 against the 14th-ranked Oregon Ducks. Some thought Williams might go with Riley to USC — he has openly said Riley was the reason he came to Oklahoma as the No. 1 QB recruit in the 2021 class — but as time has passed since Riley’s departure that seems less a possibility.
Assuming Williams stays at Oklahoma, and most indications are leaning that way, he surely will be a name on the way-too-early list of Heisman candidates for next season. We’re already seeing his name appear high in a number of lists, including one by USA Today, of leading candidates for next year’s Heisman.
The Sooners are also looking to the future with the signing of a top-rated quarterback as part of its 2021 class. Four-star prospect Nick Evers, who decommitted from Florida after that school’s coaching change, was Brent Venables’ first recruit 2021 OU recruit since becoming the new Oklahoma head coach. Evers, from Flower Mound, Texas, is rated the No. 8 quarterback in the 2021 class by 247Sports and No. 4 by Rivals.
There is little question that Williams learned a lot under Riley’s tutelage this season. But new Oklahoma offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby knows a thing or two about coaching top quarterbacks, as well. He coached Matt Corral at Ole Miss this season. Corral finished seventh in the Heisman voting this season and fourth among quarterbacks. Corral was in the top 20 in the country this season in completion percentage (68.8), passing yards (3,339) and passing efficiency (157.49).
The Sooners should be in good shape quarterback-wise for the immediate future.