As receiver T.V. Williams was contemplating his college choice, he looked at how Texas Tech used 5-6, 163-pound receiver Jakeem Grant (32 catches for 284 yards and three scores) during his freshman season in 2012.
“He had a great year and there’s a lot more he can do now the next two or three years because coach (Neal) Brown and coach (Tommy) Mainord gave him a chance,” said the 5-10, 150-pound Williams. “I see myself fitting into that offense pretty well.”
Williams became the 19th player in the 2014 recruiting class to verbally commit to UK during a press conference Tuesday night in McKinney, Texas.
Williams met Brown and Mainord about a year ago when he attended a Texas Tech camp.
“I performed pretty well and we kept in contact during the season. Then they left Texas Tech for Kentucky right after the season,” Williams said. “I messaged coach Brown and said if he was bringing that offense to Kentucky, I was still interested in playing for him. He said okay and we had a good relationship. Me and coach Mainord built a relationship and now I am going to love being there with them.”
Brown is UK’s offensive coordinator and Mainord the receivers coach. They run the offense Williams likes.
“I like to play fast,” Williams, who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds, said. “I like to go no-huddle. That’s what we do at my school and have since my eighth-grade year. I like to play hard. I like to have the ball in open space and take it to the house (end zone). I love going deep. I feel I can really stretch the field with my speed.”
He’s confident, but not cocky, about his ability.
“My parents always instilled a great deal of confidence in me,” he said. “But they also always told me confidence and cocky are two different things. I try to utilize my confidence. Confidence is a belief in yourself but you don’t have to tell everybody. Cocky is believing and knowing but having the need to tell everybody else. There’s really no need to do that.”
He says he got more confidence in himself after he received the first of about 20 Division I scholarship offers.
“That let me know I could do it and it was not just my parents telling me that. Other college coaches were telling me that, too,” Williams said.
Others told him he was too small to play Division I football.
“They didn’t say it directly to me, but a lot of people were writing articles saying how small I was. That just makes me work harder. It’s no big deal,” Williams said.
Williams says he can block and is not afraid of contact.
“In Texas, we play a lot of hard hitting football. I play in the biggest league in Texas. Every year we play the No. 1 team in the nation and I love it,” Williams said. “If it is not intense, it’s not worth it. You do not want to be a in a game where there is not hitting or big plays. It wouldn’t be worth it.”
He’s been in Lexington twice and used a spread sheet his father developed to help him rate the schools recruiting him.
“It helped me narrow down the schools to my top five. That’s the biggest thing that helped,” he said. “Right after I came back from Kentucky, Nebraska and Iowa, I sat down with my dad and went through the spread sheet to rank my top five. Then I kind of prayed on it and used where my heart was and where I felt best and that was Kentucky.”
Williams readily admits he was surprised by the buzz over UK football and how big a football state Kentucky is.
“It did surprise me at first. I couldn’t explain it to any of my friends. They were like, ‘What is wrong with Twitter?’ I was getting hit (on Twitter). I just fell in love with the Big Blue Nation. We have the best fans in the world. It is amazing. I am so happy to be part of it and able to say I am a Kentucky Wildcat now,” Williams said.
“I would tell the fans to keep it up for everybody. It means a lot. A lot of colleges hate it (fan interaction on social media). A lot of college fans hate it and say it is inappropriate for grown adults to tell children about their college decision. But there’s not a rule against it. It is a good recruiting tool to show how great our fans are. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. But Kentucky fans are great at it.”
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