Two years after his departure from USC football, C.J. Williams went back to the transfer portal once again. A four-star wide receiver in the class of 2022, Williams was one of Lincoln Riley’s first big recruiting wins upon his arrival in Los Angeles. After a freshman season in which he caught just four passes for 34 yards, however, Williams elected to enter the transfer portal.
Williams landed at Wisconsin, where he spent the past two seasons. In two years with the Badgers, he caught 31 passes for 396 yards and two touchdowns. With his team’s season now over, Williams recently announced that he will be entering the transfer portal for a second time.
This past September, Williams returned to the Coliseum with Wisconsin. He caught one pass for 15 yards against the Trojans in a 38-21 loss. Now, Williams is back in the transfer portal once again. With one year of eligibility remaining, he will look to find a landing spot that will allow him to finally showcase why he was such a highly-touted recruit coming out of high school three years ago.
The story of C.J. Williams brings up the important point that while a lot of highly-rated football players have transferred out of USC, what’s arguably worse is that most of those players never really played like elite players when the Trojans and Lincoln Riley had them.
Either these players aren’t being evaluated well when USC considers which players to add, or the players aren’t being coached well enough once they get into the program. In Williams’ case, his lack of production at Wisconsin suggests this was more of an evaluation problem than a development problem, but either way, USC can’t be making deficient decisions which lead to washouts.