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Saturday
March 20, 2010 Since 1922 |
Senior Bowl boosts Rangers’ grad NFL stock
By Dave Rogers
The Baytown Sun Published February 3, 2010 Jeremy Williams is not short on confidence and now he has plenty of believers.
The former Baytown Sterling wide receiver was named Most Outstanding Player for the South team in last Saturday’s Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala.
He caught six passes – some from Florida quarterback Tim Tebow – for 82 yards and had a 27-yard run on an end around.
But that was just the icing on the cake that was a tremendous senior season for Tulane University, one in which he reeled in 84 passes for 1,113 yards and seven touchdowns, enough to rank him 12th in the nation with 92.8 receiving yards per game.
Throw in 167 yards rushing and 483 more yards on kick returns and the 6-1, 205-pound Williams averaged 146.9 all-purpose yards to lead the Green Wave in a 3-9 campaign.
“It’s been a crazy senior year,” Williams said by phone Tuesday from Irvine, Calif., where he is training for next month’s NFL Combine workouts.
“I had doubters, but I knew I had to come out this year and prove everybody wrong. I had to just keep on playing ball. That’s what I knew.”
His performance in the Senior Bowl, where NFL coaches direct the teams and NFL scouts have everyone under a keen watch, boosted his prospects for April’s NFL draft.
“A lot of Web sites say I helped my stock out,” he relayed. “They said I could be picked in the second or third round.”
Williams, who was named Offensive MVP of District 22-5A off a 5-5 team his senior year at Sterling, had an up-and-down career at Tulane.
After redshirting in 2005 as a freshman, he started eight games in 2006 and was named honorable mention Freshman All-America by The Sporting News. As a sophomore in 2007, he started only four games, but led the team in receptions with 46 catches for 773 yards and five touchdowns.
Five games into his junior season in 2008, after catching 27 passes for 437 yards and five TDs, he suffered season-ending injuries in a game against Army.
“I felt like the season I was having my junior year was really good. I was going into a great season and then I got injured,” he said. “I knew if I came back playing the same, I’d have a good senior season.
“But this year, I think I played better. I learned how to come out of my breaks a little better. And even though I had been doing a little bit of running with the football and kick returning my junior year, it wasn’t nearly as much as my senior year.”
Williams earned his degree in media arts, which focuses on graphic design and Web design, after the 2008 season and began work on his master’s degree in liberal arts during his final football campaign.
After Tulane’s last game at the end of November, he signed with an agent and moved to California, where he is working out every day.
“It’s a lot easier to focus just on one thing than going to school,” he said.
Having not played football in nearly two months, Williams said it was good to get back on the field at the Senior Bowl.
“That Monday practice, I was a little rusty,” he said. “I didn’t have my best day at all. But I progressively got better all week, and I think Wednesday was my best practice.
“I think I had a pretty good game.”
The North team won the game 31-13, but the score was inconsequential.
“It was a real good experience for me to gauge myself against those guys. The top DBs, all of them who had hype to them, a lot of them backed it up. They were really pretty good.
“It was great to play with those guys. They are great athletes.”
And Tebow, the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner who led Florida to the 2008 national championship?
“He’s real cool, down to earth. It wasn’t like he was big-headed at all. But the media surrounding him was ridiculous,” Williams said.
After the combine in Indianapolis, where all of the top draft prospects are measured and evaluated by all 32 NFL teams, Williams’ next big day will be Tulane’s Pro Day on March 16.
Then comes the April draft and waiting to see if he can become Baytown’s next NFL standout, joining current Baytown pros Rocky Bernard, a Sterling grad, and Charles Godfrey, who went to Lee.
“I hope so,” he said. “I’m ready to try.”
The Baytown Sun Published February 3, 2010 Jeremy Williams is not short on confidence and now he has plenty of believers.
The former Baytown Sterling wide receiver was named Most Outstanding Player for the South team in last Saturday’s Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala.
He caught six passes – some from Florida quarterback Tim Tebow – for 82 yards and had a 27-yard run on an end around.
But that was just the icing on the cake that was a tremendous senior season for Tulane University, one in which he reeled in 84 passes for 1,113 yards and seven touchdowns, enough to rank him 12th in the nation with 92.8 receiving yards per game.
Throw in 167 yards rushing and 483 more yards on kick returns and the 6-1, 205-pound Williams averaged 146.9 all-purpose yards to lead the Green Wave in a 3-9 campaign.
“It’s been a crazy senior year,” Williams said by phone Tuesday from Irvine, Calif., where he is training for next month’s NFL Combine workouts.
“I had doubters, but I knew I had to come out this year and prove everybody wrong. I had to just keep on playing ball. That’s what I knew.”
His performance in the Senior Bowl, where NFL coaches direct the teams and NFL scouts have everyone under a keen watch, boosted his prospects for April’s NFL draft.
“A lot of Web sites say I helped my stock out,” he relayed. “They said I could be picked in the second or third round.”
Williams, who was named Offensive MVP of District 22-5A off a 5-5 team his senior year at Sterling, had an up-and-down career at Tulane.
After redshirting in 2005 as a freshman, he started eight games in 2006 and was named honorable mention Freshman All-America by The Sporting News. As a sophomore in 2007, he started only four games, but led the team in receptions with 46 catches for 773 yards and five touchdowns.
Five games into his junior season in 2008, after catching 27 passes for 437 yards and five TDs, he suffered season-ending injuries in a game against Army.
“I felt like the season I was having my junior year was really good. I was going into a great season and then I got injured,” he said. “I knew if I came back playing the same, I’d have a good senior season.
“But this year, I think I played better. I learned how to come out of my breaks a little better. And even though I had been doing a little bit of running with the football and kick returning my junior year, it wasn’t nearly as much as my senior year.”
Williams earned his degree in media arts, which focuses on graphic design and Web design, after the 2008 season and began work on his master’s degree in liberal arts during his final football campaign.
After Tulane’s last game at the end of November, he signed with an agent and moved to California, where he is working out every day.
“It’s a lot easier to focus just on one thing than going to school,” he said.
Having not played football in nearly two months, Williams said it was good to get back on the field at the Senior Bowl.
“That Monday practice, I was a little rusty,” he said. “I didn’t have my best day at all. But I progressively got better all week, and I think Wednesday was my best practice.
“I think I had a pretty good game.”
The North team won the game 31-13, but the score was inconsequential.
“It was a real good experience for me to gauge myself against those guys. The top DBs, all of them who had hype to them, a lot of them backed it up. They were really pretty good.
“It was great to play with those guys. They are great athletes.”
And Tebow, the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner who led Florida to the 2008 national championship?
“He’s real cool, down to earth. It wasn’t like he was big-headed at all. But the media surrounding him was ridiculous,” Williams said.
After the combine in Indianapolis, where all of the top draft prospects are measured and evaluated by all 32 NFL teams, Williams’ next big day will be Tulane’s Pro Day on March 16.
Then comes the April draft and waiting to see if he can become Baytown’s next NFL standout, joining current Baytown pros Rocky Bernard, a Sterling grad, and Charles Godfrey, who went to Lee.
“I hope so,” he said. “I’m ready to try.”