Willie Williams Is Alive

The only game in town Thursday was in Rome, Georgia...

You've caught our occasional musings about life on the road, and you get the chance to see the polls on a weekly basis in a world where scholarships aren't at the level of Division 1 life.

It was a short week for both the Union College ((Ky)) folks as well as the home team for OSG HQ, the Shorter Hawks. The second game in five days for both between two ranked teams in the Top 25 in the NAIA.

Barron Stadium holds 6,500 in a sell-out. It wasn't quite that many, but there was an interesting looking middle linebacker for the visitors- Willie Williams ((pictured, thanks to me)).

Yes, that Willie Williams...

The Willie Williams that was found out to have been brought up on eleven different charges as a juvenile. The Willie Williams that then-Miami Head Coach Larry Coker acknowledged he didn't know about all those warrants while he was being recruited. The Willie Williams who decided to empty fire extinguishers in a hotel during a recruiting trip.

Union is Williams' fifth school. Let's see if we can recall them- Miami, Louisville, West Los Angeles Junior College, Glenville State, and now Union College. Two D1's, a JuCo, a D2, and an NAIA school. And, yes, we know he never played at Glenville, but it still counts.

He's listed at 6-4, 220, but doesn't look the part. But, in the Mid-South Conference Williams is ridiculously dominant. He averages close to a dozen tackles a game, at least one of those per loss on average, and gets a sack per game as well. Safe to say the game plan with Shorter's option/veer offense was to block down, double team, and shade as far away from the middle of the field as possible. And the Hawks did a great job of that.

The only time he was mentioned was when the Hawks ran up the middle- which was only done to set up stud running back AJ Cooley ((and anyone else)) hitting the edge. And the Hawks got a signature win by avoidance therapy.

33-27...

I asked AJ about what is was like going against Williams and that defense and he thought their approach was pretty sound- treat him just like everyone else. They did... and Williams looked just like every other guy wearing the number 13 on a football field.

Lesson learned... it will be interesting to see if Williams is the same way going through a town like Barbourville, Kentucky.