USC’s Caleb Williams Is Favorite To Become Second 2-Time Heisman Trophy Winner

This time last year, Caleb Williams was viewed as a intriguing prospect and one of the best young quarterbacks in the country. Still, he was entering a new program and conference, leading to some uncertainty how he would perform. After a promising freshman season at Oklahoma in 2021, Williams transferred to USC, following Sooners coach Lincoln Riley, who took the Trojans’ job.

The 2022 season couldn’t have gone better for Williams, at least individually, as he threw for 4,537 yards and 42 touchdowns, ran for 382 yards and 10 touchdowns and won the Heisman Trophy.

This year, Williams isn’t surprising anyone. He enters as the prohibitive Heisman favorite. Across five major online sportsbooks, Williams’ Heisman odds range from +375 to +500, according to the Vegas Insider website. No one else has better odds than +900.

On Saturday, Williams begins the season when No. 6 USC faces unranked San Jose State in Los Angeles. This is almost certainly Williams’ last college season because he’s projected as the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL draft. It also represents a chance for Williams to enter college football history, joining Ohio State running back Archie Griffin as the only two-time Heisman winners.

Since Griffin accomplished that feat in 1974 and 1975, 11 other players have returned to college after winning the Heisman, including nine in the past 20 years. Nine of those players finished in the top-six of the voting a year after winning.

Oklahoma running back Billy Sims had the best showing, placing second in 1979, while BYU quarterback Ty Detmer (1991), Oklahoma quarterback Jason White (2004), USC quarterback Matt Leinart (2005) and Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson (2017) each finished third the year after winning the trophy.

Most recently, Alabama quarterback Bryce Young returned last year following his 2021 Heisman season during which he completed 66.9% of his passes, threw for 4,872 yards (324.8 per game) and 47 touchdowns and had a 167.5 rating in 15 games. Still, the oddsmakers had Young second on last year’s preseason Heisman lists behind Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud.

Young ended up finishing sixth in the voting, threw for 3,328 yards (277.3 per game) and 32 touchdowns and had a 163.2 rating. He was the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft and will start for the Carolina Panthers this year.

For Williams to win the Heisman, he will have to put up similar statistics as last year and have the Trojans in contention for the College Football Playoff late in the season. USC has an easy early season schedule, facing six consecutive unranked teams. But then the slate gets more difficult, starting with a game at No. 14 Notre Dame on Oct. 14.

The Trojans play three other teams that are ranked in the preseason Associated Press poll, hosting No. 14 Utah on Oct. 21 and No. 10 Washington on Nov. 4 and visiting No. 15 Oregon on Nov. 11.

Three of those four teams have veteran quarterbacks who are in the Heisman conversation, too: Notre Dame’s Sam Hartman, who transferred to the school after throwing for 12,967 yards and 110 touchdowns in 48 games at Wake Forest; Washington’s Michael Penix, Jr., who threw for 4,461 yards and 31 touchdowns and finished eighth in last year’s Heisman voting; and Oregon’s Bo Nix, who threw for 3,593 yards and 29 touchdowns last year. Hartman and Penix, Jr. are in their sixth years in college, while Nix is in his fifth year.

Utah, meanwhile, has a talented quarterback in Cam Rising, who led the Utes to two victories over USC last season. He threw for 415 yards and two touchdowns and running for 60 yards and three touchdowns in a 43-42 victory on Oct. 15. And he threw for 310 yards and three touchdowns in a 47-24 victory on Dec. 2 in the Pac-12 Conference championship game in which Williams sustained a hamstring injury in the first quarter.

Rising tore his anterior cruciate ligament in the Rose Bowl and underwent surgery in January. It is uncertain when he’ll return.

For Williams, those matchups against other top-tier quarterbacks will go a long way towards determining whether he’ll join Griffin as a two-time Heisman winner.