MILTON, Fla. — This modest Panhandle town, known for a stretch of the 1800s as “Scratch Ankle” for the hogbrier thorns that guarded its river banks, has scratched out a few sports notables. PGA players Bubba Watson, Boo Weekley and Heath Slocum attended high school here, as did quarterback Reggie Slack before helping Auburn win two SEC titles, Greg Allen before he became an FSU legend, and Elijah Williams before leading Florida’s 1996 national championship team in rushing.
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Within the community, optimism abounds for Emory Williams to become the next local boy who makes good. Outside the town, few people really know about him, a number that was smaller until one afternoon last April.
That day, as Williams began whipping throws around Milton’s football field, Frank Ponce, the University of Miami passing game coordinator, was intrigued, to the point of needing instant context. How had a 6-foot-5 quarterback on the brink of his senior season — sporting steady footwork, a smooth delivery and impressive zip — essentially gone undiscovered?
Mid-drill, Ponce had a question for Williams’ high school coach Kelly Gillis: “Am I getting punked? Is Ashton Kutcher fixing to jump out? Because I’ve been all over the country, and this kid throws it as good as you want anyone to throw it.”
By the time Ponce left town that evening, Williams owned a committable offer from the Hurricanes, a pairing fortified across the ensuing months when the three-star kid made a surprising run to the Elite 11 and interest swelled among programs such as FSU, Auburn, Mississippi State. None of it moved him off Miami or made him waiver — not even the three-month stint when elite West Coast quarterback Jaden Rashada also was committed to the Canes before flipping to Florida.
Settled and decisive, Williams signed with Miami on Dec. 21. A teenager who rarely dabbles in social media, never joined a 7-on-7 travel team and is more intertwined with FCA than NIL, he’s scheduled to enroll in two weeks — an underhyped member of the nation’s No. 4 recruiting class. David Morris, who has trained Williams at QB Country for the past six years, believes Miami may be getting “the sleeper of this class.”
He’s the 614th-ranked recruit, according to the 247Sports Composite, one reason Miami head coach Mario Cristobal likened Williams to his former Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert, who ranked 659th as a signee in 2016. Ponce sees elements of Joe Flacco in the way Williams stays poised in the pocket and displays a live arm.
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Another comp that surfaces, one with a Canes connection, is Ken Dorsey, based on Williams’ reputation for studying copious amounts of film. At one juncture this past season, the online tracking tool revealed he had watched more game video than the rest of Milton’s team combined.
“A focused kid who’s dialed in,” Morris said. “He’s all ball.”
In a house that’s all boys.
Steven and Melissa Williams have seven sons, with Emory being No. 3. Their oldest, Aubrey, also played quarterback at Milton and recently completed his senior season for NAIA Judson University. Then comes Grayson, who’s attending the University of Florida. Behind Emory is Tate, a sophomore at Milton, and eighth-grader Graham, who already wears a size-13 shoe. Rounding out the septet are Caleb and Ross.
On the day he signed his national letter of intent, Williams celebrated by taking three of his six brothers out to the practice field. One to do the snapping, one to play the role of mike linebacker, another to run routes.
When thunderstorms strike, they move the passing drills indoors.
“The dining room table is the sam linebacker. and the QB has to know how much space before you run into the cat’s scratching post,” Williams said. No Nerf balls are used inside the house. “Nah, it’s always a real football, because it’s gotta translate. So we need to be precise. I’m talking about some Amari Cooper- or Michael Thomas-caliber routes.”
Wrangling his band of brothers became the foundation for Williams’ leadership verve. When he was 9 years old, an Easter sermon at Olive Baptist Church had his heart “pounding out of my chest,” and when the pastor called for Baptisms, Williams convinced all his brothers to get dipped.
Nowadays, when the boys leave the bathrooms messy, “he’ll put some foot up some butt,” Steven Williams said.
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At the school, Williams helped launch a Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter in ninth grade. Fewer than 20 students attended the first meeting and now the group exceeds 100.
It fits into being a de facto ambassador, with Williams summoned to conduct campus tours when prospective families are moving in. “The way he speaks and the way he cares about this place,” Gillis said, “that’s the guy you want to meet the parents.”
A low profile
Having played at Milton and coached there for more than two decades, Gillis watched Williams grow up, anticipating the kid someday would be the face of the Panthers.
“Emory had the best mechanics for a 10-year-old quarterback,” he said. “Everything looked on-point: He knew how to hold the ball, how to have a structure and a base below him. And he could throw the p— out of it.”
Several circumstances contributed to Williams keeping a low profile — one tracing back to the spring of his freshman year when he clipped a hurdle in the 110 meters and injured his hip flexor. Compensating for the soreness over the summer might have led to popping a hamstring during preseason football camp, costing him any chance of being Milton’s starting quarterback as a 10th-grader. The Panthers played a seven-game schedule during that COVID-19 season and Williams only saw meaningful action in the regular-season finale.
Offers to gain exposure on the 7-on-7 circuit were declined, for fear that the format creates bad habits.
“Emory knows he’s never gonna have 4 seconds to throw the football in a real game,” Gillis said.
“We were concerned about its effect on your internal timing rhythm and how you can get a little sloppy,” Steven said. “He preferred to grind and dig into his high school offense.”
As a junior, Williams played through a separated shoulder while throwing for 2,168 yards, 16 touchdowns and three interceptions and posting a 63 percent completion rate. He began picking up Group of 5 interest, and QB Country’s connection with the Pitt staff led to Williams’ first Power 5 offer. Indiana also offered days before Ponce arrived in Milton for the in-person evaluation that changed Williams’ recruitment.
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Something else was different. The long hair that cascaded down over Williams’ shoulders had been trimmed. That elated Steven, an ex-Marine officer, and meshed with the old-school sentiments of Gillis.
“You look crazy,” the coach had told Williams last spring. “It’s like Trevor Lawrence’s hair, only it doesn’t look nearly as good.”
His senior season saw Williams play nine games, completing 62 percent of his passes for 2,102 yards, with 21 touchdowns and four interceptions. Eight of those touchdowns went to Georgia commit Raymond Cottrell, who was bracketed by two and sometimes three defenders most of the season. Williams missed one game, against arch-rival Pace, after running a 100-plus fever with flu symptoms. “He took liquid IVs and did everything he could to try and play,” Gillis said, “but he couldn’t get out of bed and lost 10 pounds that week.”
The ensuing game, Williams capped his high school career with a 27-of-33 performance against Tallahassee-Godby, finishing with 362 yards and throwing the same number of touchdowns (six) as incompletions.
Leading into Christmas break, he spent his final week of high school classes saying goodbye to staffers and teachers who impacted him. Williams particularly enjoyed a film class that introduced him to several treasures, including “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and “A Clockwork Orange.”
Go Canes! Miami has landed a big-time signal caller, check out Emory Williams' Panini #Elite11 QB Breakdown!@EmoryWilliams11 || @CanesFootball#GoCanes 🙌 pic.twitter.com/mA8OabPAYx
— Elite11 (@Elite11) December 21, 2022
‘A complete quarterback’
Put aside the conventional worries about a small-town kid being dropped into Miami. Williams wants to study international relations and realizes that lectures can’t beat the experience of immersing himself in the diversity of south Florida.
“He’s got sort of a bohemian side,” said Steven, noting that his son’s vibe is more Coral Gables and Coconut Grove as opposed to South Beach. Williams spent part of his last unofficial visit practicing his Spanish while watching the World Cup, and he’s frequented the Bulla Gastropub enough that the staff recognizes him.
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“A kid can get lost in Miami — you wouldn’t have wanted to send me there at 18,” Dad said. “But Emory, that’s the one you can send to Miami.”
On the football side, Cristobal’s intensity around rebuilding “The U” made Williams a believer.
“All these D-I programs work, but Cristobal seems to work on just another level,” Steven said. “That appealed to us because we thought that would be a reflection on the culture.”
The Hurricanes may yet land a second quarterback in this class, perhaps from the portal, because that has been the stated mission all along by Ponce and Cristobal. “They’ve been very open and honest about letting me know they were going to take two,” Williams said.
He’s amped about learning from NFL prospect Tyler Van Dyke next season and blending into a room that includes blue-chip backups Jake Garcia and Jacurri Brown. The thought of redshirting and developing — of being patient — isn’t worrisome at all. “That’s not the culture we live in,” Gillis said. “But to Em’s credit, he said, ‘That’s the one I live in.’”
Williams and his dad talked at length about how trying to sort out the competition can only be counterproductive. “Emory knows you’ll wrap yourself into a mental pretzel attempting to triangulate who’s returning, who’s in the portal, or who’s going to the league,” Steven said. “Just focus on getting good and the talent rises.”
That’s why Williams didn’t bail in late June when Rashada committed to the Canes amid rumors of a seven-figure NIL deal. Gillis wondered whether Williams could get a fair shot at Miami if that much money had been promised to Rashada. It became a refrain made by other programs attempting to flip Williams.
As for the NIL opportunities pitched to Williams, Steven said schools had various ways of broaching the topic, “but it wasn’t a driver for us.”
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Though Rashada flipped to Florida in November, Williams insists his mind was settled on Miami regardless. “I got to know Jaden at the Elite 11, and he’s a super-cool guy who can sling it,” he said. “It was a blessed situation either way.”
Williams’ own situation is blessed, having progressed from playing dining room football to being an Elite 11 quarterback. Now he goes from being the big man on campus in Milton to reinventing himself in Miami.
In a signing day news conference, Cristobal called Williams “a complete quarterback” and highlighted the work ethic that made him a fit for Miami: “Six-foot-four plus, really accurate arm. He can run as well as you need to run. He’s really smart. Understands protections. Him being here in camp and working with us answered all the questions we needed. He checked all the boxes.”
Then Cristobal added: “He has a tremendous desire to be elite and that really separates him from a bunch of other quarterbacks we recruited.”
On the morning after taking his final high school exam, Williams drove 90 minutes for a 9 a.m. session at QB Country. The focus, as always, was on getting good so the talent can rise.
(Photo: G. Allan Taylor / The Athletic)
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