Nurture, meet nature

 USC quarterback Caleb Williams won the Heisman Trophy the other night, which was not surprising because Caleb Williams is a ridiculous talent who in his best moments does the sort of Patrick Mahomes things of which only Patrick Mahomes used to be capable.

The guy can flat play. And because he's too young yet to declare for the NFL draft, there's an excellent chance he could be the first player since Archie Griffin almost 50 years ago to win back-to-back Heismans.

For this, some people say, he has his head coach Lincoln Riley to thank.

The Blob's take is that a guy with Williams skill set could have James Whitcomb Riley as a head coach and still be who he is.

What sent me down this path was reading (or hearing) somewhere that Williams is the third Heisman quarterback Riley has coached in six years as a head coach, implying he's some sort of quarterback whisperer/sorcerer. This might be true, but it should be noted that, as head coach at two elite schools (Oklahoma and USC), he hasn't exactly been coaching Nathan Peterman.

His first Heisman winner was Baker Mayfield, who landed at Oklahoma a fully formed talent after becoming the first freshman walk-on in history to start his first game at Texas Tech. He went on to become the Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year.

After which he transferred to OU, where three seasons later he won the Heisman.

A year later Kyler Murray made it two Heismans in a row for OU, again without much surprise. Murray, after all, was a generational multi-sport talent who likely would have been a major-league baseball player had he not chosen football. 

So, again, a guy who would have flourished with anyone's tutelage. As is Williams -- an instant sensation as a freshman at OU when he took the starting job from Spencer Rattler, a preseason Heisman favorite.

Now, this is not to say Lincoln Riley isn't a superb college football coach. He is. This season he took over a bag of hammers at USC and turned them into, well, USC again. The Trojans finished 11-2 after going 4-8 last year with roughly the same bunch of goobers.

So, the man can coach. But when you have a Caleb Williams, how much do you really have to, at least where the quarterback position is concerned?

Nature vs. nurture: The endless chicken-or-egg debate.