Lincoln Riley Shares His ‘Expectation’ For Spencer Rattler

During Saturday’s comeback victory over the Texas Longhorns, preseason Heisman favorite Spencer Rattler was benched for his Oklahoma backup Caleb Williams. Storming back to claim a 55-48 win in the Red River Showdown, Williams threw for 211 yards, two touchdowns and rushed for 88 yards, one touchdown — showing great potential as the Sooners’ starting quarterback moving forward.

While head coach Lincoln Riley has yet to name his team’s QB1 for this weekend’s matchup against TCU, many are wondering what this potential quarterback change could mean for Rattler’s future in Norman. With transfer portal usage at an all-time high, the former QB star could easily be on his way out.

Riley doesn’t think so though.

When asked about Rattler’s plans, the longtime college football coach said he believes his QB will be with the team through the 2021 season.

“So, there’s never any guarantees,” Riley said, per SoonersSports.com. “I mean you can’t predict the future, but I would fully expect to have [Rattler and Williams], the entire season. I would. Again, I know there’s never 100% but I think both those guys are pretty committed to this football team.”

Riley was then asked if he’s considered a two-quarterback system for his Sooners squad.

“I have, I have,” he said. “I guess to my core, I’m not in favor of it. … But (just) because it’s maybe something that I don’t deep down really believe in, I don’t know that I’d ever take it off the table if I felt like it could help our team. I guess at the surface, it’s not something I would want to have, but you never know. I could stand up here and say ‘heck no’, and then we go do it on Saturday, so we’ll just see how it evolves.”

Coming off a stellar year in 2020, Rattler was expected to be one of college football’s elite players in 2021. So far though, the junior QB has experienced a severe drop off in production –throwing almost as many interceptions through six games (5) as he did the entire 2020 season (7). As a result, his NFL draft stock, which once had him as an early first-round pick, has now started to plummet.

Despite this uncertainty at the quarterback position, No. 4 Oklahoma remains unbeaten on the year with a 6-0 record.

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