This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
Johnny Williams’ sophomore season should have been his breakout campaign. The wide receiver was Duke’s leading pass-catcher in 2008, and his 30 receptions that year represented the third-highest single-season total by a freshman in Duke history. He entered the 2009 season as a starter and was expected to be senior quarterback Thaddeus Lewis’s No. 1 option.
But instead of flourishing, Williams was overshadowed.
While his 31 catches for 385 yards were nothing to laugh at, they were good for only fourth-best on the team. Fellow sophomore Donovan Varner exploded for 65 receptions, 1,047 yards and eight touchdowns, while freshman Conner Vernon also surpassed Williams on the depth chart while racking up 55 catches of his own. Even junior Austin Kelly, who caught all of 13 passes in 2008, had 240 more receiving yards than Williams in 2009.
Instead of complaining, pouting or transferring, though, Williams made a change.
Once a starter on the offensive end, the rising junior will head into the 2010 season as a starting conerback on the defensive side of the ball. Instead of using his explosiveness and athletic ability to score touchdowns, he’s going to try to stop them.
And he couldn’t be happier about it.
“First I was joking about it in the training room because I played it in high school and that’s what I was recruited as,” Williams said after Duke’s spring game March 27. “Two weeks later, I went up to meet with Coach Cut and he said he was thinking of moving me to corner, and I was like, ‘For real?’.... I said, ‘I think that would be a good transition.’
“I came back and thought about it and that was what I wanted to do.”
And the Blue Devils are certainly happy Williams has taken the transition in stride. After losing safety Catron Gainey and starting cornerback Leon Wright from last season’s squad to graduation, Duke appeared extremely thin in the secondary heading into spring practice. But with Vernon, Varner and Kelly all returning on offense, plus promising redshirt freshman Tyree Watkins coming back from injury, the Blue Devil receiving corps seemed stacked.
And while Williams will certainly be rooting for his teammates to put the ball in the endzone come September, for now, he’s concerned with shutting them down in practice.
“I love going against Conner and Tyree and Austin,” Williams said. “They compete. I love competing and they make me better every day.”
Despite his athletic gifts—scout.com reports him as running a 4.38 40-yard dash in high school—Williams still has a lot of work to do to adjust to the defensive side of the ball.
On offense, a receiver knows what the play is before the ball is hiked—he runs his route from memory, and simply has to keep the ball in his hands if it is thrown his way.
But on the opposite side of the ball, it is all about reacting. A cornerback never knows what his matchup’s next move is going to be. Add in the natural instincts needed to play a zone scheme, and the transition could be overwhelming.
But maybe not for Williams.
“It’s probably an easier transition than I thought it would be because I came from wide receiver and I know the wide receiver tendencies and the stuff like that,” Williams said.
But might that give Williams an unfair advantage? Would he, say, take advantage of his knowledge and cheat on his teammates’ routes in practice?
“No, no, no,” Williams said, laughing. “Our coaches won’t let us cheat. Even if I could, I wouldn’t, because I want to be the best I can be.”
It is that attitude that has coaches optimistic about Williams’s transition, and about the impact he could have on a defense lacking depth this season.
Despite the challenges that lie ahead, Williams remains committed to his new position, at least if his one-word answer about his trepidations can be taken at face value.
When asked if he had any hesitation about moving to corner, Williams responded with a simple, “No.”
Look out, ACC receivers.
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