Oklahoma showed signs of taking the next step as potential stars popped up on both offense and defense Saturday in the annual spring game in Norman.

It was wasn’t really a game but more like a controlled scrimmage. Coach Lincoln Riley said the goal was to let every player get in for several plays.

On offense, quarterback Spencer Rattler didn’t show much but he didn’t have to. He is the leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy and he is expected to lead OU back to the College Football Playoff and perhaps the national championship game for first time under Riley.

Rattler hit six of 14 passing attempts for 116 yards while Penn State transfer was 4 of 5 for 26 yards and he carried three times for 26 yards.

But the focus was on several new offensive players, including true freshman quarterback Caleb Williams, perhaps the best high school quarterback in the nation last season.

“I thought he made good decisions, made some pretty good throws, got the ball out of his hands,” Riley said of his star recruit. “So yeah, I thought for the first time out there and kind of in that moment, I thought he did a nice job. And he’s still got so many things to clean up and learn, as we go forward, but I think he certainly has ability to do a lot of things well and showed some of those things today.”

Williams hit 10 of 11 passes for 99 yards and a score. He rushed five times for 42 yards and led two scoring drives.

Riley is satisfied with his progress.

“He’s getting to the point where he has, for the most part, a pretty good idea of what people are doing on plays, and he’s starting to see and understand it more,” Riley said. “But it’s just reps. It’s time together. It’s time that he and any other player in our program spend outside of here on it, and the more you put into it the faster it comes.”

Tennessee running back transfer Eric Gray impressed his new coach.

“So I thought he was really impressive, and no surprise,” Riley said. “I mean, he kind of is just one of those guys that shows up and works every day. You know what you’re going to get out of him each and every day. And so I’ve been impressed there. Kennedy [Brooks] had a couple limited opportunities, and he slipped on the one that looked like it maybe had a chance to go a little ways. And I thought he was OK on the others.”

Five-star freshman receiver Mario Williams caught five passes for 84 yards, including a 50-yarder from Rattler.

Practicing against this super talented wide receiver is good for OU defenders.

“There’s a respect factor there in terms of from a quickness standpoint, speed standpoint, everything else,” OU defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said of Williams. “And he’s a highlight waiting to happen, which will be fun on the fall, not so fun for us in spring ball and fall camp. So we turn into fans, but not for several months.

OU’s defense is deeper, more talented and more experienced than the last few seasons.

“Every play we made this spring, we’ve got to do again in fall camp, and then continue on that over the course of the season,” said Grinch. “I think if you looked at the 15 days, I think you see a more consistent unit. I don’t think we gave up days, meaning that you get in an 11-on-11 period and all the sudden we can’t function.

“And that’s obviously a pretty low bar. So, from that standpoint I do. If you looked at, kind of you track production and guys making plays in the backfield, for instance, or getting hands on footballs and stuff like that, you see day-in and day-out there weren’t major gaps from a production standpoint or all the sudden the loaf count explodes. All the sudden on a practice seven you’re sitting there like, ‘Well, how could we let that happen?’ So I think it’s a more consistent unit, and something that, again, we’ve got to look to continue.”

The defense has added some talented newcomers who could contribute early.

“And then in Billy Bowman, [he’s] another freshman,” Grinch said. “Don’t want to put too much on him. But I put him in a nickel role. He’s really taken off. Just he has speed. He has quickness. He has ball skills. He’s a good football player.

“And from a mental aptitude standpoint, he’s done a tremendous job, and [is] probably one of those guys [who] maybe midway through spring that [devoted] a little bit more commitment to technique. Kind of saying, ‘The things I got away with in high school, I’m not going to get away with.’ And some guys fight that, and some guys will spend a year in a program fighting that, which those are the disappointing ones.”

OU canceled the spring game due to the coronavirus in 2020 and that slowed the progress of the new players then.

“The unfortunate part of what happened last year, specific for them, it was almost – kind of because of quarantines and isolations and that – you didn’t have an opportunity to really give them that true indoctrination into what college football is,” Grinch said. “It was almost you’re immediately into game [mode]. You’re trying to make them almost just playable enough that maybe, just maybe you could get them into a game as opposed to really developing those guys.

“And so if you look at the spring, the ’19 class, the ’20 class and then there are six or seven on the defensive side of the ball, midyear enrollees, all doing their first spring football this year because the ‘19’s didn’t get it in ’20, and obviously the ‘20’s.

“So, with that, the positive that I will say is having an opportunity to coach the appropriate depth, where you don’t have the individuals that we don’t see having any impact in fall, all the sudden they’re your second defense. And that’s probably more common than you think as you go through spring, once you lose your senior class and that.”