Thursday, January 11, 2007
UVa recruit Williams wins convert in San Antonio
Carter serious about NFL bid
Doug Doughty
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In the days leading up to a rating of the state’s top football prospects, a person whose opinion I value greatly said he wasn’t sold on Virginia recruit J’Courtney Williams for two reasons:
Strike one was the level of competition Williams faced at Christchurch School (Bill Brill’s alma mater, for goodness sakes) on the Northern Neck. Strike two was Williams’ durability, based on the knee injury that limited him to five games this season.
However, with no obvious candidate to replace Williams, I went ahead and rated him as the No. 4 prospect in the state, the same as I had in the preseason.
I felt better about that selection today after speaking with Highland Springs coach Scott Burton.
Burton coached the secondary and served as defensive coordinator for the East team in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl.
Burton coached this year’s No. 3 prospect, defensive back Cris Hill, at Highland Springs.
Did Williams belong in the Top Five?
“I do think so,” Burton said “Without seeing those other ones, I can say I definitely would have loved to have had him. He really impressed me, with everything from the mental aspect to the physical aspect.
“Even though he played at a smaller school and there are, I guess you could say, people who are yet to jump on the bandwagon because of that, I think he’s going to turn a lot of heads.”
Not that Burton was skeptical.
“I was intrigued,” Burton said. “I don’t know if ‘skeptical’ is the right word, but I was intrigued to get to know him and see what kind of player he was and I was really impressed.”
Williams received a majority of the playing time at one of the linebacker positions.
“We had five linebackers to play three spots and I felt he definitely was in the upper echelon,” Burton said. “I’m not sure if there was any sort of depth chart going in. It depends on which service you read, but we had both the No. 1 weak-side and the No. 1 strong-side linebacker in the country.
“I’m not even sure which side J’Courtney ended up starting at. I’m pretty sure it was the weak side.”
So, Williams started ahead of the No. 1 linebacker in the country – again, according to one service.
“Yes,” replied Burton, who said the decision was made collectively by the defensive staff.
“What we were doing was a little bit different than what he was used to. He was more of an in-the-box linebacker for us and really took to it well.
“He has real good instincts and I was really surprised by how well he ran and how well he changed directions.”
Actually, Virginia is talking about using Williams (6 foot 4, 218 pounds) at safety.
“What he told me was, coach [Mike] London told him he would be a hybrid-Troy Polamulu type that you can’t really define clearly,” said Burton, referring to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Pro Bowl safety.
“You know, I can see that. I don’t know if he can run with slot receivers, but certainly he’s got a lot of ability. He’s a versatile weapon for any defensive coordinator.”
THE WORD I’M GETTING is that, while Keenan Carter has not made a public announcement, an agent has gotten word to the NFL that Carter is passing up his fifth season of eligibility at Virginia.
Carter is on schedule to graduate in May but is likely to stay out of school during the semester and devote his attention to training for workouts with NFL teams. A source indicates that Carter also may have gotten an invitation to a Texas all-star game.
Neither Carter nor his family and advisors felt that he got as much playing time as warranted, and his assessment of the Virginia nose-tackle situation indicated that in 2007 he would have to share time – at best – with Allen Billyk and Nate Collins.
UVa will have two other young players with nose-tackle attributes, Kevin Crawford and recruit Nick Jenkins.
