This is the 12th installment of a DawgNation series featuring the “Next Generation” of Georgia football players from the 2023 class. 4-star Tyler Williams wound up rated as the nation’s No. 18 WR and the No. 91 overall prospect on the 247Sports Composite. On3 has him as the No. 17 WR and the No. 93 recruit nationally on its Industry Ranking scale.
==========================================
The Tyler Williams recruiting story offered up some amazing storylines.
The 4-star WR is listed at 6 feet, 3 inches and 205 pounds on the Georgia football roster. He has the size, speed, length and ball skills to qualify as the prototype for what a future first-rounder looks like as a freshman.
“I chose Georgia because they really felt they could take my game to a whole another level and I was really excited by that,” Williams said back on September 27 on the day he chose UGA.
Williams was the highest-rated WR signee for the Bulldogs since 2020. That was the class that brought in three top 75 overall national prospects with Jermaine Burton, Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint and Arian Smith.
Smith came from the same Lakeland High School program Williams played for. He hosted Williams on visits a few times in Athens.
“When it came down to it, I was looking at how he transitioned from high school to now,” Williams said of Smith. “He’s a totally different receiver. His route running is way better. He’s bigger and stronger and faster. That was a big part of my decision. He and I are the same. We are fast receivers, but we really weren’t really efficient in our games and our craft and now we are. When it came down to looking at his progression in him from when coach [Bryan McClendon] got there to now, he progressed a lot.”
Williams was a McClendon priority. The word was BMac was on the phone calling Williams before he was officially announced as the new Georgia receivers coach. The All-American from Lakeland was one of those prospects that warrant a call in a coach’s first hour on the job.
Georgia didn’t begin recruiting Williams seriously until McClendon was on board. That offer didn’t come until the February after his junior year. When he took his first unofficial visit to UGA that spring, his family pretty much knew he was going to wind up a ‘Dawg.
Family means a great deal to this Georgia freshman.
The ‘Dawgs beat out Clemson, Florida, Miami and South Carolina for this decision, among others.
“A lot of people thought it came down to Miami and Georgia, but it came down to Georgia and South Carolina,” Williams said last fall.
He had a message for DawgNation on his commitment day.
“You guys are getting a hard-working hungry player,” he said. “Trying to win another championship with however I can contribute to that. Just know that over the course of the next four years, you will be getting another championship again.”
That statement came before the ‘Dawgs went back-to-back after pummeling TCU in January.
Every school that offered him at receiver was behind on the Williams evaluation. He switched positions from quarterback to receiver basically two weeks before his junior season. He was a third-team quarterback for a state title contender prior to that.
He was quick and with a big arm capable of launching the football some 70 yards. But he didn’t even play a single snap during the spring game of his junior year.
The coaches at Lakeland wisely decided Williams was too good of an athlete to be watching their games. He was moved to receiver. That brought instant fireworks given his size, speed and athleticism. There is a famous story of him catching five touchdown passes in his first varsity game.
He scored five times and three of those counted. He was a receiver from that moment. Williams quickly went from no snaps in the spring scrimmage to being named an Under Armour All-American after his junior year.
Williams was also the punt returner and kick returner for Lakeland. He was a big play waiting to happen there. When an observer went to see him play live, there were more remarkable stories to be found.
Lakeland had won mythical national championships before. That program now has eight state championships after adding another in 2022.
The Dreadnaughts had a sizable replica of that famous Naval battleship in their end zone. Those cannons went off after touchdowns and big plays. When the Dreadnaughts stopped during games to wave goodnight to the nearby children’s hospital that looked over their field, it all added up to quite a spectacle.
It was even a sight to see Williams go out to hold for extra points whenever that Dreadnaught fired those cannons after touchdowns. The All-American receiver was also the holder.
We’ve never seen that before in 20-plus years of covering high school sports. Well, except when Smith also used to do it at Lakeland.
Yet those are stories DawgNation has shared before with Williams. He enrolled early in January and this DawgNation “Next Generation” story offers a platform to share the one story that is central to everything that Williams is and will be in life. Not just with football.
It is a story about connection.
While Tyler Williams should make the stat lines of Gunner Stockton, Dyan Raiola and Ryan Puglisi look good in years to come, we are not talking about a downfield connection for explosive plays there.
Williams just has a way of connecting with people. People want to pour into him.
What connection means with Georgia freshman Tyler Williams
Connection.
That’s one of Kirby Smart’s core traits of the Georgia football program along with composure, resiliency and toughness.
Williams has got that connection part down. That was no more evident than while at his commitment event that showed off a live Bulldog, a cool flora shirt or three and a full community center of well-wishers despite Hurricane Ira bearing down on the Tampa Metro area.
His commitment video included some testimonials from former coaches. Williams was shouted out in one by 7-time All-NBA pick and Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady. McGrady had coached Williams on one of his youth 7-on-7 teams coming up.
“My trainer is his uncle,” Williams said back on his commitment day last September. “I played with his AAU team growing up. I stayed one summer with him and worked out with him for a full year. He’s always been a part of my life. I can call him for advice or anything like that. He’s like a good person I can talk to whenever I need some advice.”
It was also uncommon to see almost every one of his rec ball and Pop Warner coaches at that ceremony. They were all there to support Tyler on his special day.
Several of them were wearing custom T-shirts that were covered with his name and likeness. For someone who has been to hundreds of commitment ceremonies by now, this one was different.
It all started to add up. The quick rise in the game. The position switch that sparked it. The fact that he holds on extra points. Waving to the kids at the children’s hospital and a replica Naval battleship.
This wasn’t the average All-American recruit on his way to Georgia.
Williams is different because of those connections. Those connections are instilled in him at home by his mother Shan Williams.
She is already one of those proud “Dawg Moms” on social media.
She doesn’t appreciate it when athletes wear slides on college visits. Or when they wear the armbands of another school while on a visit to another school. That’s disrespectful in her eyes.
Her “Message from Mama” on his signing day last December is touching. That’s also something we had never quite seen before on the Georgia football recruiting beat.
His mother shaped Tyler into the man he is today.
“I really have to thank my Mom for all of this,” he said. “Without her, none of this in my career would have even been possible. She wouldn’t let me get down or give up. She set all of this up. She really put me in a position to be here.”
“She’s the reason I transferred schools. Last year I was going to Winter Haven. Now I am here at Lakeland. She really put me into this position to start realizing my dreams.”
Shan Williams: A special bond between Mother and son
Everyone at Lakeland knows Shan Willilams. She is her son’s No. 1 supporter. She’s probably a top-five supporter for several other guys on the team.
This young man and his family chose the ‘Dawgs before they had ever set foot inside Sanford Stadium for a game. That doesn’t happen all that often these days.
Why did she think her son chose Georgia?
“I just really felt that he was happy being there,” she said. “It felt like home to him. I love the school. The receiver room is awesome now, but I think what he brings to the table can really make it one that everybody needs to pay attention to and watch.”
She felt the people at UGA were “different” and “honest” from the jump.
“I knew after our first visit that Georgia was where I could see him,” she said. “But I also knew he wanted to weigh all his options and consider staying at home. We’re a very close family so he wanted to make sure that option of staying close to home wasn’t the best thing for him.”
“But I think that very first Georgia visit touched him. It touched me. It was special.”
She knows her son is a family man.
“That’s what makes me proudest,” she said. “Not the football. The way he cares for and loves his family. He’s the best sibling I could ever ask for with his younger siblings. It is just special the way he cares for his family.”
She moved him to Lakeland. It was a hard choice. She made the decision to move him without him even knowing.
“I knew his capabilities and I knew the sky was the limit for him so I made the choice to move him to something better for his future,” she said.
He wound up with 44 scholarship offers. When things started to happen for Tyler, she was crying every morning when the new offers would trickle in.
There was a good story one time when Williams thought he might be in trouble for something. He had an ankle injury that kept him out of practice one day. When his mother showed up to practice, she called a member of the coaching staff over to let them know he had a dentist appointment the next day.
“When I came back after talking to his mother, he thought that she was upset because he wasn’t in repping and practicing that day,” Lakeland receivers coach Marvin Frazier said. “That just goes to show you the rapport they have for each other showing that she has his back and has been his coach and supporter since day one. He’s always trying to do his best to please his mother and to make sure his mother knows he is working hard.”
“He’s just a hard worker man and he gets that from his mother.”
Check out Tyler Williams below on his DawgNation live commitment program.
What kind of receiver will Tyler Williams be for Georgia football?
When he was born, he was chubby. Shan Williams said his nickname was “Phat” as a toddler.
“When I was born, I was like the size of a five-year-old,” Tyler Williams said last September. “I was huge. I had to learn to walk early because nobody could pick me up.”
The chubby toddler became a sleek prototype for a No. 1 receiver at a national championship program.
It was a natural transition for him from quarterback to receiver. Frazier wondered about how much he was going to hear about teaching the novice receiver how to block. But the transition was almost instant.
He caught a 60-yard touchdown on a post on basically his first rep in a 7-on-7 setting and that was it. He was a willing blocker in the run game.
“It was like instantly he became one of the best receivers in the nation overnight,” Frazier said.
Smith was a freak of nature in high school as far as speed. A true speed demon. Williams is more of a wiry athlete and an all-around athlete blessed with great speed. He played basketball and also could throw that pigskin a quarter-mile like Uncle Rico.
That’s a lot of skills at work there.
“He just has a natural gift as far as catching the ball,” Frazier said. “That’s his best asset. He’s got natural eye coordination with his hands.”
Frazier called him a 5-foot-5 receiver stuck in a 6-foot-3 frame. He’s a scat-type slot receiver. That’s evident by the way he returned punts and kickoffs. That’s not normally a skill set that an outside receiver with a 6-foot-3 frame can do.
Williams agreed with that.
‘There is some stuff I can do that not many guys my size can do,” Williams said. “Like getting open within three yards off the line to taking guys deep and being able to shut it down and come back inside. Just little things like that.”
Williams was able to sharpen his skills every day in practice at Lakeland against Cormani McClain. McClain was the consensus No. 1 prospect nationally at cornerback in 2023.
Georgia hasn’t brought in a big receiver like Williams with that speed and skill set since George Pickens was there, but that’s not the proper player parallel here.
Watch his tape. It is built on a mixture of the traits that have made Davante Adams and Stefon Diggs All-Pros in the NFL.
Those are the players he studies.
Frazier shared a dazzling prediction for his future. That’s because he still considered Williams to be a blank canvas to be filled in at Georgia.
He spent just two years as a receiver in high school but also played basketball so he didn’t have a lot of time to work on his game.
“What you see from Tyler isn’t even the beginning,” Frazier said. “He was really just scratching the surface here. The way our practice schedule goes we don’t get to do a bunch of individual time. What you saw from him in high school is not even the beginning.”
Lakeland repped plays and situations in practice mostly. Their practice time did not focus on skill development.
That didn’t stop Williams from turning 11 of his 21 catches into touchdowns as a junior. But that experience background is why there might be a learning curve early for Wiliams in Athens.
His best football will come after one or two springs with McClendon. Maybe in the fall of 2024. Georgia has a deep group of veteran receivers this fall so he will have some time to develop.
The ‘Dawgs should see at least three or four of those veterans move on to the NFL after this season.
“I truly believe he is a 5-foot-5 type player with all the quicks trapped in that big body,” Frazier said. “He’s a scat receiver. You don’t see too many kids 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds that return kicks but he can do all of that. He will remind you of your shiftiest slot guy in that big body. He’s one of the hardest-working kids I’ve ever been around. He holds himself accountable and others. Over the summer he’s always trying to get extra work in. He’s always working with different trainers.”
“I think his ceiling is out of this world.”
DAWGNATION NEXT GENERATION
(check out the series so far)
- CJ Allen: The All-American Georgia boy who grew up dreaming of being a ‘Dawg
- Peyton Woodring: Nation’s No. 1 K prospect aims to be the best kicker in UGA history
- Zeed Haynes: Freshman WR can be ‘really special’ in Athens
- AJ Harris: All-American CB signee told Kirby Smart in middle school he would be a ‘Dawg
- Roderick Robinson: Early enrollee ready to add to Georgia football “RBU” tradition
- Pearce Spurlin III: Look for legacy TE Pearce Spurlin III to make big catches in Athens
- Lawson Luckie: The real reason why this ‘Dawg legacy chose UGA will tug at your heart
- Joenel Aguero: The All-American who turned down $3 million to be developed by Georgia football
- Jordan Hall: Georgia’s “Big Baby” DL will make opposing OLs throw tantrums
- Raylen Wilson: Freshman with unreal GPS numbers and a home-cooked recipe for success
- Monroe Freeling: 5-star OT signee is truly a “Next Generation” prospect in Athens
