USC’s Caleb Williams Wins the Heisman

GRACE RIGOR (Sports Editor)

Each year, the Heisman Trophy is presented to the most outstanding college football player of the year. Every player’s statistics, progress, character and more defining qualities are what determine their eligibility for the award. The votes are broken up into sections of the United States with a total of 870 media votes from sports journalists. The Heisman Award ceremony was held on Dec. 10 to announce Caleb Williams of USC as the winner.

The top four finalists were announced on Dec. 5 and included Williams, Max Duggan (Texas Christian University), Stetson Bennett (Georgia University) and C.J. Stroud (Ohio State University). All finalists this year are quarterbacks who drove their teams to the top 10 of the NCAA college football rankings. 

“I felt as if each player was chosen accurately because all of the other quarterbacks put out amazing performances through the year and showed why they were in the conversation for being Heisman,” senior Roland Rangel said.

This was Stroud’s second year as a Heisman finalist, with 37 touchdowns and 3,340 passing yards. Duggan is TCU’s first Heisman finalist since 2000 and has made his mark on the program by leading them to the college football playoffs for the first time. Duggan has 30 touchdowns, 3,321 yards and four interceptions. Bennett currently leads the undefeated number one team in college football with 3,425 yards, 20 touchdowns and six interceptions. 

Williams has made USC history by only recently transferring to USC this season from Oklahoma, along with head coach Lincoln Riley. Williams has a total of 4,075 yards, 37 touchdowns and four interceptions. This goes down in the USC record books as the first Heisman trophy win since Reggie Bush in 2005 and Riley’s third Heisman winner. USC’s season record in 2021 was 4-8 as head coach Clay Helton failed to get the Trojans in the NCAA Top 25 college football rankings. 

“I felt like he really did deserve the Heisman because he was like, the guy for USC since they had a few years that went downhill,” Rangel said.

The addition of Williams secured USC in the top five of the rankings with a season record of 11-2 overall. The only obstacle that stood in their way of officially going to the college football playoffs were two close losses to Utah. 

“Since Williams is a sophomore, they still have time together as a team to do better than this season,” senior Sarah Maya said.

Williams fully earned his new starting position on the team by gaining a Heisman trophy and being the team’s single greatest contributor each game. According to NBC Los Angeles, he leads the nation with 37 passing touchdowns, 21.7 points responsible per game and 282 points responsible overall.