Illinois’ Isaiah Williams made a highly anticipated position switch to wide receiver before the 2021 season after spending his first three seasons in an Illini uniform as a back quarterback, and through the first seven games of the season, Williams has proven to be one of the team’s best pass catchers.
The redshirt freshman has caught 32 passes this season and has 298 receiving yards and one touchdown catch on a jet sweep that came against Nebraska in the first game of the season. Last week, Illinois had their first of two bye-weeks last week, and that allowed Williams and the rest of the offense to return to focusing fundamentals.
“We had a lot of individual periods where I got a chance to work with [wide receivers] Coach George McDonald,” Williams said on Tuesday. “Worked on things like contested catches, breaking at the top of our routes, off-platform catches. It was good to just work on that and back to the basics.”
Williams made the switch to wide receiver after the spring football game but was only able to get a couple of practices in at the position before organized team practices had to stop for the summer. But Williams was able to work with the other wide receivers, quarterbacks, and coaches as he learned the position.
Still, he’s just seven games into a position that he never played growing up, so he’s still learning a lot of the finer details that go into the position. He was also able to use the bye week to get healthy and recover from the first half of the season that featured more hits than he was used to.
“It was about resting and reflection to prepare my body for this next little stretch,” Williams said. “I feel like I did a great job of that, having my body recover and getting ready for the next part of the season.”
When the former four-star prospect made the move to wide receiver, he made did it with an expectation that he could eventually be one of the best pass-catchers in the Big Ten. Williams isn’t at that point yet, and he knows that. So, he used the off week as an opportunity to work on a lot of the things he feels he still needs to work on.
“All my life I played in a box,” Williams said. “From little league, playing quarterback and younger than that, playing running back. I was always inside the box. So, my biggest thing was make someone miss. Now I just want to get to the edge and circle the defense and try to score. That’s the biggest thing I need to work on. Circling the defense and trying to score and when catching, getting yards right then and there instead of looking to make someone miss. Trying to make explosive plays and trying to score.”
Having a unique combination of speed and agility makes Williams one of the more difficult players to tackle on the Illinois roster. He showed that when he ran for a record 192 yards against Rutgers last season when he was still playing quarterback. But making tacklers miss at a new position is something that Williams is still trying to figure out how to make those grasping arms grab air – instead of him.
“At receiver, you got to catch the ball first, then tuck and then you look and make someone miss. I wouldn’t say the act of making someone miss is harder, it’s just different,” Williams said. “You have to react way faster, that’s the biggest thing. It’s not harder to make someone miss, your reaction time just has to be a lot faster and everything happens quicker.”
Williams is still learning the position and he hasn’t yet met all of his expectations at wide receiver, but he is confident that if he continues to work on the little things that he will soon see his name next to big awards.
“I want the switch to be great, I want the switch to be one of the best in the Big Ten,” Williams said. “Honestly, statistics-wise, I’m not there yet. One thing Coach Bielema teaches us, the coaches teach us and even themselves, we never done growing. My biggest thing for me is constant growth, every single day. Finding ways to grow and get better. That’s how I’m taking it with a positive mindset, positive energy good things are going to come as long as I keep working and doing the little things. I know the big things and the accolades will come with it.”
