Jameson Williams’ ‘better decision’ paying off with big season at Alabama

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Six months have gone by, and James Williams has resisted the urge to say to his son Jameson, “I told you so.”

Three years ago, Jameson Williams ignored his dad’s advice to sign with Alabama and chose to play football at Ohio State. After two seasons in scarlet and gray, he has become a star in crimson and white. His father is taking the high road.

“I’d never do that to him,” James Williams said in a phone interview from St. Louis, where he is a barber. “We’re not going to play the dozens like that. We’re bigger than that. It’s a family. Everybody in a family ain’t going to make the same decision. My job as a father is to see what maybe you can’t, whether it’s right or wrong. I can warn you, or I can help you.”

Jameson said, “Just a high school kid. Made a good decision. But I made a better decision after my sophomore year.” He flashed the grin that is never far from his face.

Amid all the stories of players who got lost in the transfer portal, Williams is the player for whom the new system worked perfectly.

In two seasons with the Buckeyes, Williams made six starts and caught a total of 15 passes for 266 yards and three touchdowns. After going through spring football in Columbus, seeing that he would be fighting for playing time among Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson and Jaxson Smith-Njigba, Williams pulled the ripcord.

Forty-five seconds after Williams entered the transfer portal, Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban called him and, for the second time, offered him a scholarship to play at Alabama.

Williams made up his mind right then and there to go to Tuscaloosa, but he stayed in the portal to hear the other offers. He got so many calls and texts in the next three days that his iPhone X broke.

After nine games with the Crimson Tide, Williams leads the SEC with 96.7 receiving yards per game. He has caught 45 passes for 870 yards and seven touchdowns. He has returned seven kickoffs for 286 yards and two touchdowns, both against Southern Miss, the first player in Alabama’s storied history to take two kickoffs to the house in one game.

(That average of 40.8 yards per return would lead the FBS, but Williams is four returns short of qualifying. If you gave him four returns of zero yards, his average would fall to 26.0 yards per return. That still would lead the SEC.)

It is a happy ending for Williams, or to be more accurate, a new beginning.

“I didn’t think he would get the opportunity to right a wrong,” James Williams said of his son. “Not to right a wrong – to make another impactful decision. I didn’t think he would be able to do that. I did not.”

We as sports fans overlook the human side of what the wire services headline, “Transactions.” The transfer portal can benefit the student-athlete who needs an opportunity, or yearns to break out, or even wants to play closer to home.

But imagine leaving the friends you made in two years on one campus and arriving on a different campus as the new teammate. It’s the end of May. The campus is quiet. You know one guy in the locker room. You’re coming in to take someone’s job. It’s the first day of first grade all over again.

“It was kind of hard,” Williams said. “Missing spring ball, going (to a new program) for fall camp, I was going to have to work twice as hard. But that’s no problem because I’m a very hard worker.”

He knew tight end Jahlil Billingsley, who is from Chicago; they attended camps together as high schoolers. After that, the quickest way to assimilate in the modern college football locker room is to prove that you work hard. Williams took care of that. He had to get acquainted with his playbook, which was not as welcoming as his new teammates.

During the summer, Williams said, “as we were going over plays with each other, the bond was starting to build with me making plays, me getting to do some things and guys seeing that. They were congratulating me on good routes, good catches. But I’m also doing the same thing to them. They’re seeing it’s mutual, like brothers. I think the bond built during the summer.”

On the second snap of the season, offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien called for Bryce Young to throw deep to Williams. The pass fell incomplete, but on the third snap of the second half, Young threw a pass that Williams, three steps clear of Miami defensive back D.J. Ivey, took 94 yards for a touchdown. Free safety Gurvan Hall appeared to have an angle to catch Williams. Hall didn’t.

After Williams finished Alabama’s 63-14 rout of Southern Miss with three touchdowns – the two kickoff returns and an 81-yard touchdown reception – and 258 all-purpose yards, Young said, “Obviously, Jameson’s really fast. We developed (a) kind of chemistry and timing throughout the offseason and then through the season. It’s something we’re still working to improve on.”

That’s the game where Saban branded Williams “a dog,” the best praise from a demanding coach.

“Playing for him, actually coming over and seeing how things were run under him, I was like, ‘Wow, I see why guys go on and play in the NFL,’ ” Williams said. “I see why guys are so much more advanced on the field, watching those games and watching players play. I just (saw) the difference and I loved that difference. Sometimes I say to myself, ‘Man, I wish I had done it earlier.’ But things happen.”

Williams, even as he revels in Tuscaloosa, said he talks to Olave just about every day. They compare notes, discuss practice, confide in each other, “maybe talk a little trash,” Williams said. “That’s my bro.”

He said he feels more at home in Tuscaloosa than he did in Columbus, even as he bemoans the insufficient number of golden arches near his new campus. “Lines are so long,” Williams said. “There’s only like one McDonald’s on this side of campus, or you got to go all the way on the other side, and that one might be packed, too.”

Yes, Alabama may spend millions on food service for its athletes, including a smoothie bar in its airplane hangar of a weight room. But at the slightest provocation, Williams steals away for a double cheeseburger (“no onions, though”) and fries. How an athlete this fast can be fueled by Mickey D’s is a subject worthy of Nobel-quality research.

If your biggest issue is onions on your double cheeseburger, you’re in the right place. Ask Dad how he feels about his son’s new home.

“I’m not going to say happy,” James Williams said. “I’m not going to say ecstatic. I’m going to say grateful because not everybody gets an opportunity, like I told you, to right a wrong.”