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'05 MD DB/WR Derrick Williams (Penn State signee)

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bobcat84 said:
Mil,

I think '86's last link posted indicated he is down to Tenn/TX/Okla/PSU/FL with MD on the outside looking in. Too bad. Guess Corny wasn't much help here. What is the ass't. coach recruiting him? Hazel?
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Yeah, but that was on Nov 9th, almost two weeks before The Game. Like I said, maybe our passing performance in that game has him at least considering us now.
 
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Guys

No mention of tOSU in the last few updates. If we're in it, he is hiding it very well. Here is the latest installment of his Washington Post series on Derrick (all the other installments are in this thread) (wasn't going to post it but since the thread is bumped to the top, here goes) :tongue2:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20751-2004Nov29.html

I20990-2004Nov29L


Despite having highly rated recruit Derrick Williams, shown playing quarterback, the Eleanor Roosevelt football team lost to C.H. Flowers in the Maryland 4A playoffs.
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In Formula for a Prospect, Wins, Losses Don't Figure

By Dan Steinberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 30, 2004; Page D01

Fourth in a series of occasional articles

Several hundred players on eight Maryland football teams will compete for state championships this week at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium. Eleanor Roosevelt's Derrick Williams, widely regarded as one of the top football recruits in the country, won't be among them.

His high school career ended in a playoff loss to C.H. Flowers two weeks ago, his tear-stained face planted in a muddy field following a last-minute interception, his father's hand tapping lightly on his shoulder pads, every moment recorded by a closing ring of three video cameras.

So Derrick Williams's biggest football priority this week is a trip on Saturday to Magruder High School for a Capital Beltway League game featuring his 11-year-old cousin, Anthony Williams, and the rest of the P.G. Falcons, a team Derrick has helped train.

The nation's last two top-rated high school basketball players -- Dwight Howard last year and LeBron James the year before -- closed their high school careers with state championships, further enhancing their own reputations. High school baseball teams regularly ride one dominant pitcher to state titles -- right-handed phenom Homer Bailey, USA Today's 2004 high school baseball player of the year and a first-round draft pick of the Cincinnati Reds, helped La Grange High win Texas state championships his freshman and senior seasons.

"It's harder with football, it's a hell of a lot harder," said Severna Park Coach J.P. Hines, whose team knocked off Eleanor Roosevelt in the first week of the season. "You have to have talent on both ends, and you have to have some luck, too."

College coaches and recruiting analysts agreed that there are more variables on a football field, more ways for a superstar to wind up his career as Williams did, on the wrong end of a six-point loss, his team done in by three turnovers and several special teams miscues.

Last year's highest-rated football recruit, current Oklahoma freshman running back and Heisman Trophy hopeful Adrian Peterson, also could not carry his high school team past the first round of the postseason. But the wins and losses hardly matter, according to recruiting analysts and college coaches.

"If [Williams] was rated the number one prospect in the country off what he did last year, to me he's still the number one prospect in the country," said one college recruiter who asked not to be identified because of NCAA recruiting rules that prohibit college coaches from talking about high school prospects. "If he had broken his leg and didn't play at all, we'd still take him. His stats have nothing to do with it."

Football recruits, several coaches said, are judged by a different set of statistics: sprint times and weightlifting figures and leaping marks. These numbers are recorded not on torn-up grassy fields in the chaos of fall weekends but at tightly controlled offseason camps, where the 6-foot, 190-pound Williams -- who spent most of his senior season playing quarterback and cornerback -- built a reputation that eventually yielded more than 50 Division I scholarship offers.

"When you talk about recruiting, you're looking at raw numbers on his physical ability matched with what we've seen throughout his high school career, and also what his potential might be," said another recruiter. "He's probably had some of the better numbers anyone's ever had coming out of high school as far as his strength, his speed, his agility and his size, and you can't coach that. . . . I guarantee that every other school in the country that's offered him [a scholarship] feels the same way."

Few high school players would quibble with a senior season like Williams's: He rushed for more than 1,000 yards, passed for more than 800, snared two interceptions and played a part in more than 50 percent of Eleanor Roosevelt's touchdowns. Twice, Williams registered passing, rushing and receiving touchdowns in the same game.

"I think he played phenomenal," said Suitland Coach Nick Lynch, whose team's only loss came when Williams spearheaded a fourth-quarter scoring drive in the teams' regular season finale. "I wish Derrick Williams the best, and I'm just glad he's graduating so I don't have to deal with him any more."

But several Washington area players put up numbers this season that rivaled or surpassed Williams's. Of the 47 area players who have recorded 1,000 yards rushing, 22 averaged more yards per carry than Williams. In 13 games, Northwest senior quarterback Ike Whitaker, who has orally committed to Virginia Tech, has accounted for 37 touchdowns, 13 more than Williams had in 11 games. Williams himself had more touchdowns and more total yards as a junior, when Eleanor Roosevelt advanced to the 4A state semifinals.

On the other hand, Williams played through his first significant leg injury this fall and spent most of the season out of position on offense; he will almost certainly play wide receiver in college. He played his senior season with five new offensive linemen on a team that lost several future college football players from its 2003 roster, including Maryland's Trey Covington, Virginia's Theirrien "Bud" Davis and Florida's Derrick Harvey. The Raiders were 12-1 in 2003, 8-3 this fall.

"It's different every year -- different players on your team, and you have to adjust to the people on your team," said Eleanor Roosevelt running back Jeff Harrison. "He can't do everything by himself, it's a team thing. . . . There's not a chance of him being overrated."

Williams's No. 1 ranking attracted the attention of opponents. Lynch told his team that Williams's celebrity could help their own scholarship opportunities, and Severna Park's players celebrated their victory by screaming, "Number one all-American, I don't think so, baby," and, "Who's number one now?"

Still, moments later, the same Severna Park players happily predicted that they would one day watch Williams play in the NFL, and he continued to collect good wishes from opponents throughout the season. Before joining his celebrating teammates after their playoff victory over Roosevelt, C.H. Flowers running back Ramond Dixon grabbed Williams and told him, "You did your thing, D, you did your thing."

The recruiting Web site Rivals.com continues to rate Williams the No. 1 prospect in the country. He climbed from No. 9 to No. 7 on analyst Tom Lemming's list as the season went on, and dropped from No. 1 to No. 3 in Scout.com's latest national rankings, which were released on Sunday.

But the local media members who selected the Washington area's offensive and defensive MVP for the Quarterback Club did not choose Williams; those awards were claimed by Whitaker and DeMatha's Kenny Jefferson, respectively.

"I don't want to sound cocky, but I'm determined to do good in college," Williams said. "If everything goes right, if I do good in college and the Lord blesses me and I'm a first-round pick in the NFL draft, we can look back at the people who doubted me and say, 'Thank you very much.' "

Williams is, however, one of 14 nominees for a national player of the year award given out in conjunction with the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, and he is one of five finalists for a national strength-and-speed award. And the fact that he'll spend this weekend watching youth football does little to damper the enthusiasm of local coaches.

"There are kids [in the Washington area] who had better years offensively, and there are kids who had better defensive years," Lackey Coach Scott Chadwick said. "If you ask me one guy to start my team with in the Washington area, I'm still probably picking Derrick Williams."
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Here is the fifth in the series article on DW

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53436-2004Dec9.html

Taking Coaches At Face Value
Williams Seeks Stability With His School of Choice

By Dan Steinberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 10, 2004; Page D01

Shortly before Steve Spurrier appeared at Derrick Williams's Upper Marlboro home on Monday night, the phone rang. It was Ron Zook.

Zook, fired as head football coach at Florida and newly hired at Illinois, wanted Williams -- a senior at Eleanor Roosevelt High and one of the top recruits in the country -- to consider playing football for his new university. Soon, Spurrier -- not yet two weeks into his tenure as South Carolina's head coach -- arrived, bringing son Steve Spurrier Jr. and more than 90 minutes worth of reasons why his new school might be a good fit for Williams.

From the beginning, Williams and his parents have made coaching stability a centerpiece of their college search. But with less than two weeks remaining until Williams is scheduled to stand before the ESPN cameras and announce his decision, that quest has been disrupted by the NCAA's annual square dance, with coaches careening from one partner to the next.

Of the nine schools Williams is still seriously considering, three -- Florida, Illinois and South Carolina -- have hired new coaches in the past month. Three more -- Louisville, Penn State and Texas -- have dealt with off-and-on rumors of change. The other three schools on Williams's list are Tennessee, Florida State and Oklahoma.

Williams's older brother, Domonique, had seen his collegiate football career sidetracked by the departure of then-North Carolina coach Mack Brown, a scenario no one in the family wants to live through again. And with Williams's parents determined to find both a familial atmosphere and a coach willing to get the ball to their 6-foot, 190-pound play-making son who likely will play wide receiver in college, they came to a definite conclusion.

"Everyone says you should go to a school for the university, but that's not the case -- the main thing for these kids is the head coach," said Derrick's father, Dwight Williams.

"It's not the school you're looking at, really; it's just that football program," agreed Derrick Williams, who plans to graduate high school this month and enroll in college soon after the new year to get a head start on his training for next season. "All the schools offer the same education, the same degrees. It's just where you feel comfortable, and the coaching staff."

But as Williams's list was trimmed from the more than 50 Division I-A schools offering him athletic scholarships to an evolving list of about nine finalists, wisps of instability clung to several of his choices.

Penn State, one of Williams's most dedicated suitors and the site of his second official visit, has been beset by rumors of Joe Paterno's retirement. Brown, now at Texas, where Williams plans to visit next week, is dogged by dissatisfaction over the Longhorns' annual failure to beat Oklahoma.

Louisville's offense has been consistently impressive, but Coach Bobby Petrino is himself a sought-after recruit and was at first evasive when Dwight Williams asked about the chances Petrino would leave for a higher-profile job. Petrino issued a statement this week restating his commitment to Louisville and his lack of interest in other jobs.

South Carolina entered the picture late last month, with Spurrier making his first phone contact less than an hour before the family headed for an official visit to the University of Tennessee.

"Man, we really liked that offensive approach you had. . . . That's something we're very, very interested in," gushed Dwight Williams, while Derrick idly microwaved his second bowl of chicken-flavored noodles. Derrick later postponed his Texas visit to allow Spurrier to make an in-home pitch.

And then there is the Florida matter.

Even allowing for Hurricane Jeanne, which kept the family trapped in Gainesville for two extra days, their late September official visit to Gainesville was judged an unequivocal success.

Derrick, who stayed with high school friend and current Gator Derrick Harvey, repeatedly called the trip "brilliant." Dwight was impressed by the wide-open offensive attack, by quarterback Chris Leak and by the possibility of early playing time for Derrick. Mother Brinda Williams called the trip "superb," happily noting that everyone they met had nothing but good things to say about the university and Zook.

And perhaps most importantly, the entire family was comforted by a meeting in Zook's office with the coach, Athletic Director Jeremy Foley and University of Florida President Bernard Machen, in which that trio assured the family that all rumors to the contrary, Zook's job was secure.

Exactly one month later, Derrick Williams was sitting in the Eleanor Roosevelt athletic department when Harvey called with the news. Zook had been fired.

"It really hurt me, because like I said, we talked to the president of the institution, we talked to the athletic director, and they both said Zook would be there, he had signed a contract extension," Brinda Williams said. "And within [four] weeks of visiting the institution, they fired the guy right there on the spot. What were we supposed to think then? Who can we trust now?"

Dwight Williams later called the Florida visit "a wasted trip." During their next campus visit, Brinda Williams said, she told Penn State President Graham Spanier, "I just want people to be honest."

Zook's dismissal, though, did not come as a surprise to Derrick.

"You know in the recruiting process that people trying to get you, they tell you lies and other stuff, and then when you get to campus it's a whole different thing," Derrick Williams said. "Sometimes what they tell you, you know it's a lie, you know it's a baldfaced lie. I knew that before [Zook got fired]. You've got to read between the lines sometimes."

And so Williams and his parents have adapted to this month's new landscape. Zook called Eleanor Roosevelt Coach Rick Houchens twice on Monday with the urgent news that he had landed at Illinois and wanted to remain in the game. At the time, Brinda Williams said, she "didn't even know Illinois had a football program." Now Zook will attempt to visit Williams and his parents next week.

New Florida coach Urban Meyer recently called, trying to keep the Gators in the picture. The Williamses were happy to hear that Meyer plans on retaining some of Zook's assistant coaches, and he, too, is trying to schedule a home visit.

And if the music starts, the coaches grab different partners and a few of the faces change, the Williams family will adjust again.

"This is almost like shooting dice," Dwight Williams said. "And it's a shame that it's like that. But it is."
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http://washingtontimes.com/sports/20041220-010528-4272r.htm

A true blue chip

By Barker Davis
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Derrick Williams is two days away from the decision of a lifetime. Florida ... Oklahoma ... Tennessee ... Penn State ... or Texas? "Right now there's a whole lot of pressure on me," said Williams, the nation's top prep football player, his fingers steepled in a subconscious plea for divine inspiration. "You could say I'm down to three schools, though I'm not telling anyone which three. But those three are pretty much dead even, so all this stuff is flying around in my head.

"I really just can't wait until it's over. But at the same time, I know it's a huge decision for my career, and I want to make it the right one, because I know once it's over, it's over and there's no going back." The latest suitor to football's "Slash" nickname, the 6-foot, 195-pound quarterback/wide receiver/running back/defensive back/return man has spent the last several seasons tormenting opponents of Eleanor Roosevelt High from every skill position on the field. And Wednesday, when he announces his college destination live on ESPNEWS at 3:30 p.m. from the Greenbelt school, prep football's army of one instantly will improve the 2005 outlook of one fortunate program.

"He's just an absolute gamebreaker," said a recruiter who represents one of the aforementioned schools but by NCAA rule is not allowed to give an attributable quote about a recruit. "Think [USC's] Reggie Bush but more versatile. Remember David Palmer at Alabama? He reminds me of a much bigger version of [Palmer]. He's about as close to can't-miss as you'll get."

His blue-chip value goes beyond his No. 1 ranking on Rivals.com, the nation's premier recruiting network. It goes beyond his 57 college offers, a number representing more than half of the nation's Division I-A programs. It can be measured most accurately by the lustmeter, by witnessing the relative levels of genuflection exhibited by the game's top coaches as they engage in the desperate dance of courtship.

Only .50-caliber recruits can reduce elder statesmen like Joe Paterno to a schoolgirl-style note beginning with the underlined sentiment, "We need Derrick Williams." What's next, doodled hearts in the margins, a sign-off of scribbled X's and O's? Only the best of the best was worthy of receiving the first call Steve Spurrier made after accepting his new post at South Carolina.

Only outrageous talents can prompt USC's Pete Carroll, college coaching's current king, to make a cross-country journey during a dead communication period last spring knowing all he could do was watch you practice without exchanging a word.

"We've had more than our share of Division I recruits around here, and just last year we had [Derrick Harvey], who was listed in the top 20 by every analyst," said Eleanor Roosevelt coach Rick Houchens. "But with Derrick [Williams], it's gone to another level. It's been madness. With DH, West Coast coaches would call and request video. With Derrick, those guys started showing up on campus, like Carroll. "You know it's serious when the coach of the national champions spends a day in a plane just for you."

Of course, serious things tend to happen when you run a 4.4 in the 40-yard dash as an eighth grader — Williams now is consistently in the 4.28-4.32 range. And serious visitors are to be expected when you amass 3,360 yards of total offense in your senior season, shredding teams as a rusher (1,123), passer (982), receiver (404) and return man (851) despite an inexperienced offensive line and an uncooperative ankle.

"He had a couple of games this year where he ran for over 100, passed for over 100 and caught for 100. Have you ever heard of such a thing?" Houchens said in awe. "Everyone is recruiting him as a receiver, a slot back, but I've never seen a kid who could play so many positions at such an elite level."

Derrick has. Eight years ago, Williams' brother, Domonique, was in a similar position as one of the nation's elite recruits. A stellar running back/quarterback/receiver at Gwynn Park, Domonique picked master recruiter Mack Brown and North Carolina over Tennessee.

But at the end of his freshman season in Chapel Hill, Brown bolted for Texas, UNC restructured its offense around the next blue-chipper du jour (Ronald Curry) and Domonique's career took an academic and performance plummet that saw him finish his college days as a bit player at North Carolina A&T.

Thus far, Derrick has proved more adept than Domonique both on and off the field, where he'll finish high school a semester early with a GPA in the 3.5 range. But Domonique's experience has led both Derrick and his parents (Dwight and Brinda) to place coaching stability near the top of his recruiting requirements.

That would seem to hurt the chances of Penn State, where Paterno is well past tempting the gallows, and Florida, where the recent firing of Ron Zook stunned the Williams clan.

"That was very hard to take, because on my official visit down there, we sat down with the president and the athletic director, and they assured us that Coach Zook was going to be there," said Williams. "They said they were going to extend his contract and not to worry. And like two weeks later, he gets fired. It's hard to trust them, because they lied, plain and simple." It wasn't the first time Williams felt let down by a university.

A year ago, Maryland was right at the top of Williams' list. After all, he'd grown up rooting for the school at which his father was an assistant athletic director and the first black senior administrator in the department. But Williams was laid off after 21 years of service at the end of the last academic year. And to Derrick's amazement, Maryland continued to recruit him.

"That was really [lousy]," said Williams. "With all that going on my dad was still very positive about Maryland. He kept talking about Coach Fridge and saying it could be the best place for me. But me and my brother just couldn't get with it.

"I thought that Dad was even favoring Maryland a little bit, and I just finally said, 'Dad, I don't want to go to a school that's taking food off my table while I'm providing them with a Thanksgiving feast.' That was my decision. They were very easy to eliminate, because, obviously, they just don't get it."

It's impossible to tell by talking to Williams who does get it. Between his own experiences and those of his brother and father, Derrick is both guarded and shrewd well beyond his years, immediately sniffing out any questions intended to tip his recruiting hand.

He enjoyed eating alligator at Texas, explaining its tastes like "chewy chicken."

The VolWalk, where Tennessee players walk through an adoring throng from campus to dressing room before games, was "very cool."

He has family in Oklahoma.

He has a close friend at Florida (Harvey) and an affinity for the Swamp.

Penn State offered him a scholarship (not legally but unofficially) at 13, when he dazzled coaches at their summer camp, a gesture he never has forgotten.

He spent his nights on each of his five official visits destroying the local talent at video games, crushing everyone from Florida's Chris Leak to Oklahoma's Mark Clayton at Madden NFL 2005.

"I left my mark in every state, because I always won," Williams said, grinning. "I beat everybody. I beat four people in Texas, seven at Penn State, like nine at Oklahoma. That was the most fun part about the visits."

He has labeled each of those visits "brilliant," explaining he was given the best player hosts and lavished with information and attention on each trip, which concluded Wednesday with a midweek jaunt to Texas.

"It's hard, because I'm messing with the top college football coaches in America," said Williams, who spent the weekend at a banquet in New York honoring the five finalists for the Walter Payton Award (the high school Heisman) before retreating into decision-making seclusion with his family. "We're talking about Mack Brown, Phil Fulmer, Stoops, Paterno. They are all superb at what they do. Every last one of them knows ways to make things sound good, ways to work on your mom, how to sell you on the family atmosphere of their program. "I've seen it all, man. Now, it's time for me to step back and try to figure out which one of them really sees me."
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Every time Bskin posts new info on this kid I get excited that maybe OSU is back in the game on him. I'll have to remember not to click on the updates as I really don't care where he ends up as I don't follow Texas, Florida, PSU, or Okie...I gave up on OSU getting him along time ago.
 
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The big ten is going to be very good in the next couple years with all these schools brining in good players. PSU had a fairly decent class last year and now this year they are looking good. Purdue, Iowa, and Wisky have been recruiting good and then scUM and tOSU.

Anyways this is one heck of a pickup for PSU. Everyone had pretty much written him off and they were just holding out hope. Everyone thought he was going to OKie. Well I like it when good talent comes to the big ten.
 
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19904-2004Dec22.html

New From The Post
Top Recruit Williams Picks Penn State

By Dan Steinberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 22, 2004; 4:15 PM

After navigating through one of most intense recruiting battles in Maryland high school football history, Eleanor Roosevelt High School star Derrick Williams announced today that he will play football for Penn State University.

"That whole state is Joe Paterno's state," Williams said in his live televised announcement today, referring to the Nittany Lions' legendary head coach. "It's a great school. The facilities, the people and the alumni -- all of that was great."

Upon graduating this month, Williams will enroll at Penn State in time for the spring semester, where he will likely play wide receiver. He is returning to the university where he began constructing his national reputation when he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds the summer before his ninth-grade year.

That performance immediately earned him a private audience with Joe Paterno -- "the big guy wants to talk to you," Williams was told -- and Penn State became Williams's most persistent suitor. Paterno, who turned 78 on Tuesday, made a rare personal visit to Eleanor Roosevelt in Greenbelt last spring, prefacing the visit with a three-page handwritten note in which he explained "ordinarily I don't recruit in the Spring but this year -- but this year -- the first day we are allowed to be on the road I'm going to be in Eleanor Roosevelt High School."

Still, as Florida, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Florida State and virtually every other nationally-ranked team entered the picture, the floundering Nittany Lions saw their courtship nearly end this fall.

"Quite frankly, Penn State is off our list," father Dwight Williams said in late September, attempting to debunk the Internet speculation he had been reading about the Nittany Lions.

Through the early fall, the team's offense had been atrocious -- "I mean, they looked awful," Dwight Williams said after one game. "They look like they're back in the '60s," he admitted after another -- and the questions about Paterno's future and the team's play calling caused the family to all but eliminate the school.

But despite Dwight Williams's insistence that emotion was not part of the family's calculus, Derrick still felt a ferocious loyalty to Paterno, the first coach to make him an oral scholarship offer. And so on a Saturday afternoon in late October, the Williams family rushed home after Derrick's high school game and then left for a road trip to State College, arriving in central Pennsylvania just before midnight.

The highlight of most official visits is the big home game, but on this day the Nittany Lions were being pummeled at Ohio State, their fourth consecutive game scoring less than 14 points.

The next day, the family met with Penn State President Graham Spanier for an hour at his home; they met with about 20 Penn State players who raved about the school; they ate a home-cooked lunch at Paterno's house with the coach and wife Sue, who corrected the coach when he called Dwight Williams "Dwayne"; they were given handmade posters with red hearts surrounding the words "Love You Lions" and dozens of student testimonials touting Penn State's virtues.

"I would say that Penn State finds its definition in no place more than its football team and this shows throughout its culture," one student named Cornelius wrote. "Plus football players are celebrities on campus."

During their exit interview, Dwight Williams told Paterno how impressed the family had been with the university, how the players had nothing but praise for Paterno, how they said they wanted to work harder to make their coach happy. Williams said the legendary coach had tears in his eyes when he was finished.

The Williams family came back to Maryland with breathless tales of Paterno's humility and generosity, and by then the tide had started to turn in Penn State's favor.

"This is a decision we're going to make, and it's not just about football," Dwight Williams said. "We feel like there's a strong commitment there, not only for athletes and their athletic ability, but there's a commitment for people to be successful in life. People can laugh or do whatever they want, but this is our decision."

Brinda Williams said she got sick to her stomach after looking down from the top of Beaver Stadium, but she was nevertheless entranced by the visit.

"It was awesome, it was gorgeous, they put circles around Florida," she said, mentioning the school where the family had taken their first official visit. "It just seemed like the people up there so genuine, you know what I mean?"

Brother Domonique told Williams that if he helped revive the Nittany Lions, he could become a legend in Happy Valley, and the recruit began telling people that Penn State's coaches felt he was the kind of player who could turn their program around.

Williams had been famous for his impersonations of the Eleanor Roosevelt coaching staff; now, he debuted his Joe Paterno impression for teammates, shouting out "C'mon, guys!" in a nasally squeak.

"Joe Paterno reminds me of Vince Lombardi," high school teammate Nico Scott said. "Those the funniest dudes, though," Derrick replied, obviously enamored with the coach.

Williams's high school sweetheart is enrolled 40 miles away at Penn State's Altoona campus, although the family said that was a minor factor in their decision.

In late November, Derrick and some friends drove on an unannounced unofficial visit to see Penn State's home finale against Michigan State. The Nittany Lions' 37-13 victory gave them a 4-7 record this season; it was Penn State's fourth losing campaign in the past five years.

When word of the Michigan State trip got out, the Penn State message board stalwarts who had been lusting after Williams for months were further inflamed.

"I hate to say it but Penn State needs to get this kid more than ever before with any other kid," one poster wrote. Wrote another Nittany Lions fan: "Penn State is a sleeping giant. All we need is a stud WR to return to dominance. . . . Fame, Fortune are all gauranteed [sic]."

When Derrick Williams ran into Dunbar High All-Met James McDonald and Dunbar Coach Craig Jeffries at a recent photo shoot, the coach asked Derrick for his thoughts on the school.

"And bam! That's when his pants fell down, his eyes lit up and he started talking about Penn State," Jeffries said. "He assured James he would like it, that it was a program on the rise -- he really was selling the program."

McDonald soon committed to Penn State, adding to the team's bounty of high-profile recruits, including cornerback Justin King from Pittsburgh, the highest rated defensive back in the country according to some analysts and a friend of Derrick's from the summer camp circuit.

Dwight Williams began creating something of a shrine to Derrick in the family's basement, initially including four Penn State posters. And when his parents discussed the final decision-making process last week, they noted that public perception would do nothing to dissuade their son.

"The thing about Derrick, more than anything, he likes a challenge," Dwight Williams said. "He likes when people say he can't do something."
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I happy for Penn St. Heck I'm happy for the Big Ten. We need some super talent like Williams, it only improves the entire league. Congrats JoePA

I'm happy for Penn St. Heck I'm happy for the Big Ten. We need some super talent like Williams, it only improves the entire league. Congrats JoePA
 
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