Caleb Williams discusses Wisconsin transfer rumors from 2022 offseason

It’s time to finally put a seal on a story that is now more than two years old.

Chicago Bears starting quarterback Caleb Williams, who the team recently selected with the No. 1 overall pick of the 2024 NFL draft out of USC, joined the Pardon My Take podcast on Thursday. One question from host Dan Katz brought the conversation back to the 2022 offseason, as he asked Williams whether he ever truly considered Wisconsin during his transfer process.

Related: 10 bold predictions for Wisconsin’s 2024 football season

A refresher: Williams was a rising star at Oklahoma during the 2021 season. He won the starting job from Spencer Rattler in impressive fashion. Rattler, for context, was a popular Heisman pick entering the campaign.

Williams made headlines during his debut season, throwing for 21 touchdowns and only four interceptions in 11 games of action.

But Oklahoma head coach and QB guru Lincoln Riley surprisingly left for USC toward the end of the 2021 season, which led Williams to enter the transfer portal after it concluded. USC was the likely destination from the start given the connection to Riley. But some Wisconsin rumors started circling when the Badgers hired OC Bobby Engram — one of Williams’ close family friends whose son Dean was also a cornerback at Wisconsin.

This all happened after Wisconsin starter Graham Mertz mostly struggled during the 2021 season. Fans still had hope that Mertz would live up to his top recruiting billing, but a potential addition of Williams would have been a game-changing upgrade.

That let the rumors get life. Those rumors persisted until Williams officially committed to USC later that offseason.

Williams confirmed his contact with the Badgers during his appearance on Pardon My Take.

“My best friend Dean Engram was at Wisconsin and his dad [Bobby Engram] was a coach. So we reached out to them. We were trying to just get the vibe and see what was going on, how it was up there,” Williams said. “Somehow it caught wind that I was in contact with them. I’m consistently in contact with those two, because I’ve grown up with them.”

So Williams confirmed that his camp reached out to Wisconsin, though mostly with information gathering in mind. He went on to clarify that it was never a real consideration.

“Somehow it caught wind and it blew up on Instagram. But it wasn’t too huge. It was never too crazy,” Williams clarified.

The star quarterback did, at least, go on to complement the Badgers fans who reached out to try to urge him to commit to the program.

Williams ended up winning a Heisman Trophy at USC in 2022 before being selected No. 1 overall in the 2024 draft. He appears to be the next Lincoln Riley quarterback set to rise to NFL stardom. That means his transfer decision, looking back, was the correct one.

Wisconsin, meanwhile, fired head coach Paul Chryst just five games into the 2022 season. Bobby Engram returned to the NFL level as a result, joining the Washington Commanders as their WRs coach. What appeared to be an attractive destination for the star transfer was anything but.

There is an argument that Williams joining the Badgers would have extended the Paul Chryst era. But according to the quarterback himself, it never had a real chance of happening.

At least there is closure to this two-year-old what-if.