Patrick Mahomes’ failures give Lincoln Riley, Caleb Williams a lesson

Oklahoma analyst Kegan Reneau told us on The Riley Files that Iowa State’s Jon Heacock was the defensive coordinator who particularly challenged Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma in the Big 12. Iowa State’s defense put a lot of players deep in the secondary and forced Oklahoma’s quarterbacks to be patient.

This is something Riley can pass along to his current quarterback at USC, Caleb Williams. Notably, an elite quarterback can become an instructive example for Williams, helping Riley to convey a number of important lessons to his star pupil.

“What is the fundamental counter to that (Iowa State/Heacock) defense? People will say, well, if you could run the ball, then you can get a defense out out of that alignment, but in terms of the quarterback, looking at Caleb Williams, you mentioned that Patrick Mahomes had to be more patient,” Reneau said. “He really wasn’t very patient in the AFC Championship Game. That’s why that game slipped away from the Chiefs against the Bengals.”

Riley is in a position to emphasize to Caleb Williams that when a defense puts everyone back, Caleb has to make the short throw and not try to fit a downfield pass into a tight window. Using the short pass and calling the run audible will keep USC’s turnover count low and its first-down count high.