James Williams operates differently than a lot of his peer recruits.
He has all the range and ball skills necessary to play the safety position with his 6-foot-5 frame. The 247Sports Composite ratings also deem him as a rare recruit.
That service ranks him as the nation’s No. 1 safety, the No. 1 prospect in the state of Florida as the nation’s No. 5 overall recruit for 2021. The longtime Georgia priority also rates No. 1 on DawgNation’s 2021 top targets listing for the 2021 class.
Yet he doesn’t think that prospects camps are necessary. He doesn’t see them as essential toward the goals he wants to accomplish on the football career. He’d rather be known for being a team leader than a 5-star recruit.
Williams celebrates his birthday today. He even chose to release the top 3 schools in his recruitment on this day to mark the occasion.
While his peer elite recruits are content to drop much larger listings of their top schools at this time, he just cut right to the chase with his top 3 schools.
Georgia made the cut. As expected. The Bulldogs have continued to get him on campus over the last year. Williams has already bonded quite well with several members of the program up to this point, including several Bulldogs who also grew up in South Florida.
His hometown Miami Hurricanes did not make his top group. The 5-star safety included both Alabama and Clemson among his top 3 schools on his birthday release.
It has been a busy off-season up to this point for Williams. He visited Georgia for one of its three “Junior Day” weekends last month.
Prior to that, he also opted to transfer from Western in Opa Locka back to the school where he played his sophomore season. That will be at American Heritage in Plantation.
The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel honored him as a first-team All-Broward County performer after a strong junior year. They listed him with 62 tackles and six interceptions. Williams also added three touchdown receptions to his 2019 highlight reel below.
He’s already at 220 pounds for that frame. Those that see his frame and immediately project him to be a linebacker should not be so quick with that evaluation. He has true ball skills to cover a lot of ground and play in the box as a safety.
Williams has been credited with 14 interceptions at the high school through his first three seasons. DawgNation saw his pick off three passes in a matter of minutes last May at an elite national 7-on-7 tournament in Atlanta.
He aims to be a safety at the college level and certainly has the skill level and intelligence to do so. While watching him work in a camp setting, it was clearly evident how well he helped line up the other defensive backs in certain coverages and how well he supported his teammates.
