Illinois QB Juice Williams shoulders heavy load

Illinois QB Juice Williams shoulders heavy load

By Marlen Garcia, USA TODAY
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. ?- Isiah "Juice" Williams is the pride of the Chicago Public League, which is every bit a responsibility as an honor.

The 6-2, 223-pound sophomore quarterback will lead Illinois (9-3) to its first Rose Bowl appearance in 24 years Tuesday against Pacific-10 Conference champion Southern California (10-2). He also will represent the Chicago Public League's nearly 70 high school football teams, including his own, Chicago Vocational Career Academy, a 68-year-old school on the Southeast Side that butts up against the massive Chicago Skyway bridge leading to Indiana.

TURNING IT AROUND: Zook gets Illinois going in right direction

From Illinois coach Ron Zook's view, Williams used to walk around as if the bridge were resting on his shoulders.

"There was a point in time last year where I was worried," Zook says. "He was beat down. He felt he had to do it for the city of Chicago."

Time and again since he committed to Illinois about three years ago, Williams has heard powerful words of encouragement from friends and messages about expectations.

"In the Public League you can have 1,000 freshmen start at a school, but only 200 will graduate and 50 will go to college," says Antoine McNutt, a 1995 Vocational graduate who played at Illinois before transferring to Tennessee State. "So when a guy makes it, we're all behind him."

McNutt adds this caveat, a fact of life for Public Leaguers: "You have to do it for us."

For a while, Williams wasn't sure he could live up to this. Although he earned the starting job after three games last season Williams was mired in inexperience and growing pains as Illinois went 2-10 in its fifth consecutive losing season.

Earlier this season Williams shared quarterback duties with backup Eddie McGee, a redshirt freshman from Washington, D.C., who at times looked like a better closer of games.

"I was just wondering if I could actually be a quarterback, if I was actually capable of doing the things everyone hoped upon me to do," Williams says. "I felt the weight of Chicago on my back at times. I just felt what I did out there on the field … represented the Chicago Public League and everyone else that was coming out that's trying to be successful with their careers. It really represented a problem for me."

He says he has finally let it go. "After a while, I just said, 'Forget it and have fun, just do the things that I've been blessed by God to be able to come out here and do.' That's when things really started to turn around for me."

By season's end, Williams had carved his niche as a confident running quarterback, a first for Illinois, which in the past relied mostly on drop-back passers.

"I never realized what we were missing," says Loren Tate, The (Champaign) News-Gazette columnist who has covered Illinois football since 1955.

Williams and 5-11 junior running back Rashard Mendenhall, the Big Ten Conference's offensive player of the year, give Illinois a powerful backfield. Williams' biggest day came Nov. 10 in a 28-21 upset of then-No. 1 Ohio State, in Columbus, as he threw for 140 yards and four touchdowns.

His most crucial play, like a scene out of a Hollywood film, came during a timeout with 6:53 left and Illinois leading 28-21, when he persuaded Zook to change his mind and go for it on fourth down with the ball inches shy of a first down. Williams didn't disappoint, digging in for the first down.

With a victory over Northwestern the following week, Illinois exceeded the team's eight wins in the previous four seasons. Going from two wins in 2006 to nine gives Illinois Division I-A's best turnaround this season.

"We will go down in history as being the class that really got this thing going," Williams says.

Still learning

Williams has plenty of room for improvement when it comes to the intricacies of playing quarterback, though he has made big strides in understanding defenses and coverages, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Mike Locksley says.

"He's not 100% in his decisions throwing the ball, but he can come back and communicate to me what happened ?- what the coverage was and what they did," Locksley says. "To me, that's when you start understanding, when he can describe or communicate with me … where we both understand what took place and why he made a decision."

About this time last year, Zook was calling Williams on the phone during bowl games to discuss the play of various quarterbacks. Zook was taken aback when Williams said he wasn't watching.

"I said, 'What do you mean, you weren't watching?' " Zook says. " 'You've got to watch this. You need to watch the quarterbacks.' "

To make it in the Big Ten, Zook needed Williams to understand playing quarterback is a lifestyle, not a 9-to-5 job. Williams is still getting a grip on those demands.

"He's still a little ways away from where I'd like to see him be in terms of the student-of-the-game part of it," Locksley says.

Long layoff

Williams' passing numbers pale in comparison with those of Southern California quarterback John David Booty, a senior and second-year starter with 5,870 career passing yards, including 2,106 this season to go with 20 touchdown passes and nine interceptions.

Williams has 1,498 passing yards, 13 touchdown passes and 10 interceptions this season, and he has rushed for 774 yards and seven scores.

"He's more of a pocket passer that will kill you with his arm," Williams says of Booty. "I can do some things in the air and some things with my legs. We both present problems to defenses."

Williams will need to show a 41-day layoff since Illinois' last game, a 41-22 victory over Northwestern, hasn't hurt his momentum. In his last three games he completed 41 of 66 passes for 567 yards and seven touchdowns with two interceptions. He also rushed for 339 yards and three touchdowns.

"It's going to be tough," Williams says of the layoff. "I (think) about whether I'm going to have the same reactions that I've had toward the end of the season or I'm going to go back to the struggling days I had in the beginning of the season.

"It's all how I feel on that particular day, whether I'm confident, whether I'm full of anxiety, whether I'm nervous, having butterflies. I think I should be all right because I'm pretty confident coming off the type of season I've had. That should bleed over to Pasadena."

Williams says he isn't stressed out anymore about his responsibilities, whether it's on the field or as a father to daughter La'Chez, who was born Sept. 3 and lives in Champaign with Williams' girlfriend, Chez Chambers.

Win or lose Tuesday, Williams already has a place in the Vocational trophy case, not far from the articles that highlight the achievements of other Vocational graduates: Dick Butkus, who went on to become a legendary middle linebacker for Illinois and the Chicago Bears; Chris Zorich, a member of Notre Dame's 1988 national championship team; and Juwan Howard of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks.

Williams will go down as the one who put Illinois football back on the map.

'I' is for improvement

Illinois' seven-win improvement over last season, going into the Rose Bowl, was a school record for one-season turnarounds and the best in the NCAA Division I-A (now Football Bowl Subdivision) this season. A victory in the Rose Bowl would give the Illini one of the top turnarounds in I-A history and the best by a Big Ten team.

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