Jayden Williams, 2019 3* DB, Corona (Centennial), CA (Offered 11/15/18)

dirtysouwfdawg · February 2019

*God

UWhuskytskeet · February 2019

https://theathletic.com/795859/2019/02/01/jayden-williams-washington-recruit/

Here's a snippet from Caple:

Williams’ recruitment hasn’t been nearly as high-profile as the aforementioned prospects. He has the size colleges tend to covet in a defensive back, but he didn’t receive much recruiting attention until the past few months. That’s partially because he began his career at Riverside (Calif.) North, a lesser-known program in the southern California football landscape. For his senior year, Williams transferred to powerhouse Centennial, which has produced several Division I prospects under coach Matt Logan. Maybe there, he figured, he stood a better chance of getting noticed.

“Coach Logan does that for a lot of players,” Williams said, “so I knew he could do it for me.”

Even at Centennial, Williams stood out because of his size. At first, Logan put him on offense. It took about three weeks into camp for John Myerly, Centennial’s secondary coach, to convince Logan to let Williams play defense, which is where Myerly says Williams’ heart is.

“He’s a defensive-minded player,” Myerly said. “The one thing we all liked was we never had to push that kid. That kid enjoys football like he’s 8 years old. He goes 100 mph in practice, just like he does on game day, so for us that’s huge. It’s hard to coach aggressiveness. We’ve had some good DBs come out of our program the last five-six years, but he’s by far the most aggressive, physical DB we’ve had over the last eight years at Centennial.”

With transfers, Logan said, there can be initial concern regarding their ability or willingness to embrace Centennial’s strength and conditioning standards, which he believes are more demanding than most programs. But that wasn’t an issue with Williams.

“He loved it from day one,” Logan said, “and really came in and worked hard, and showed that he definitely wanted to be a part of our team and was excited to be there.”

Coaches noticed immediately how physical Williams preferred to play — not just in coverage but as a willing run-stopper, too, which Myerly said is rare for a high school defensive back. And the highlight of his season came early: In Centennial’s second game, against Orange Lutheran and five-star receiver Kyle Ford, coaches put Williams on Ford after he had a big first half. The rest of the game, Myerly said, “he shut him down.”

“I like being on my own island, pressed up in the receiver’s face,” Williams said. “I can play off-man, too, but I love being physical.”

“Most high school teams don’t get a 200-pound corner with hips like Jayden and the speed he has,” Myerly said. “It’s like playing with an outside linebacker or a nickel at corner.”

That attitude, combined with his size, makes him an intriguing prospect for the Huskies. They signed three defensive backs in December — cornerback Trent McDuffie and safeties Kamren Fabiculanan and Cameron Williams — and assuming Turner does sign with UW on Wednesday, Williams could be a nice addition to what already is an impressive haul at the position.

He first connected with UW’s coaches in June, at a camp held at University of Redlands, which is in the eastern suburbs of L.A. Keith Bhonapha, UW’s running backs coach, is UW’s recruiter in the area, and first established a relationship with Williams. Williams also has gotten to know Lake, and it was Lake who called in mid-November to offer a scholarship.

Williams’ reaction: “It was just mind-blowing. Coach Lake called me and was like, ‘We want to offer you a full scholarship; we want you to be a Dawg.’ I was just like, ‘Oh, my God.’ ”

His visit to Seattle, he said, “was everything I thought it was and more. It was so clean. Fresh air. The city was just so nice.”

And since his visit, Myerly said Williams continues to emphasize how comfortable he felt with UW’s coaching staff.

“He knows he’s wanted up there,” Myerly said.

Still, Williams says his recruitment remains “wide open,” and his weekend visit to USC could go a long way in determining where he ends up. He’ll sign with the school of his choice Wednesday, and said he wants to make up his mind either a day or two before that.

“Washington is held in very high regard at our school and a lot of places,” Logan said. “I think Coach Petersen and his staff do it right, and they’ve not only built great teams but they develop young men and only look for certain types of players. It’s really an honor to be offered by him.”

Like everyone else, Centennial’s coaches are eager to learn where Williams will play in college.

“We’re all kind of curious where he’s going to decide,” Myerly said. “His happy place is playing football. All Jayden wants to do is play football. That’s it.

“One reason why he transferred was to be on a bigger stage. I told him, ‘Just do your thing. Don’t go do all this extra stuff. You’re a special player.’ And he is. We’ve been around long enough and seen enough kids go through that you can look at somebody and just know they’re going to be successful at the next level.”