Time for Rashid Williams to Show That He's a Big Catch for UW

The redshirt freshman wide receiver put in a learning year that brought him one game appearance.

People saw just a fleeting glimpse of freshman wide receiver Rashid Williams last season, alternately making good and bad things happen in the University of Washington's 59-32 victory over California.

With 10 minutes left in the game, fellow freshman Tybo Rogers caught a short pass and the running back scampered 47 yards with it, only to have 15 marched off in the other direction after the overeager Williams was flagged for a block in the back on the play. Still, his coaches had to like the fact the young pass-catcher wanted to mix it up.

Two snaps later, 6-foot-1, 185-pound Williams stretched out in the left flat and impressively hauled in a Dylan Morris pass for a 12-yard gain.

Two plays after that, the first-year player got his hands on an 18-yard pass over the middle from Morris to put the ball on the Bears 13 and set up a final score in the UW's lopsided win. The kid looked comfortable at the next level.

Yet that was it as far as 2023 game snaps for Williams, a 4-star recruit from Pittsburg High School in the Bay Area who was pursued by nearly all of the Pac-12 schools, plus the SEC's Arkansas, Mississippi and Mississippi State, and a host of others. As a schoolboy senior, he finished with a busy 76 receptions for 1,087 yards and 12 touchdowns. 

The Williams name remains the most famous for receivers in Husky football history, with Reggie Williams catching 243 passes in his 2001-03 career, earning first-team AP All-America honors and going as the ninth overall pick in the NFL Draft to the Jacksonville Jaguars. 

This latest Williams version showed off his skills in just one game as a rookie in Montlake and went back into storage. With six veteran receivers well entrenched ahead of him on the Husky depth chart, he had  to be patient and wait his turn until they left, and he was good with that.

"I'm just soaking up everything I could get from the vets and stuff before they leave," Williams said at the CFP championship game media day.

For Williams, he admittedly needed some adjustment time with the rigors of college football once he arrived in Montlake. Fall camp, with its hectic pace of sometimes 16-hour days mapped out for practice, weight work and whatever else was needed, wore him out when he first got on campus.

"They're progressing exactly as they should," said former UW receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard, now at Alabama, when asked about Williams and then-freshman Keith Reynolds. "They're doing everything they can to uphold the standard of the room." 

The young receiver looked promising enough as he ran through the Cal secondary last September. He's also one of the reasons new coach Jedd Fisch, who tried to recruit Williams for Arizona, said he wasn't going to load up on more skills players just yet because he liked what he inherited at the UW. 

Williams is one of them and, after his two freshman catches, he's ready to assume a much larger role with the Huskies. Teammates Rome Odunze, Jalen McMillan and Ja'Lynn Polk have moved on, leaving plenty of opportunity for someone like him to run routes and get open.

"I'm taking everything from them and everything I have and mix it together in this offseason," Williams said. "And I'm going to work hard so I can be the vet."

 

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