Game Program Feature: The Durham Deacon
11/8/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 8, 2010
This article was originally published in the Nov. 6 edition of Kickoff, the official gameday magazine of Wake Forest football.
By Evan Lepler
Like so many Carolina youth, Marshall Williams grew up in the thick of the Duke-UNC rivalry. As a young kid in Durham, his father tried to pull him toward the Blue Devils, while his mother supported the Tar Heels. Despite a family friendship with former Duke assistant basketball coach Johnny Dawkins (now the head coach at Stanford) that often yielded free tickets to Cameron Indoor Stadium, Williams, to his dad's dismay, grew to love the lighter shade of blue from Chapel Hill.
"My dad and I would always get tickets to the Carolina-Duke game," remembered Williams. "I'd be in the Duke section making everyone mad. I grew up as a diehard Carolina basketball fan; I bled Carolina blue. I'm still a fan of Carolina basketball, but Wake now supersedes that."
As Williams flourished as a multi-sport athlete at Riverside High School, numerous universities took interest in the versatile young man. Looking back at the recruiting process, Marshall acknowledged that the folks at North Carolina had the early advantage as the simple result of his upbringing. But as is so often the case in college recruiting, whichever school makes first contact with a promising youngster possesses a significant advantage, and often times, the ultimate edge.
"I got recruited by Duke, and Duke really, really wanted me," Williams recalled, "and my dad wanted me to go to Duke...Carolina did recruit me, but they didn't offer me [early enough]. I was such a big Carolina fan at the time that I knew if Carolina recruited me and offered me, I would go. But Wake was the first team to recruit me and showed loyalty the whole time. I needed to move away from the nest a little bit, so I chose Wake.
"I think I made a very good decision. I've won a lot more games here than I would have won at Carolina or Duke."
A topsy-turvy four years later, Williams, now a fifth-year senior, is one of four captains of the 2010 Demon Deacons, hoping to cap a successful career that will place him among the top 20 receivers in Wake Forest gridiron history. After he redshirted his true freshman year in 2006 and missed the entirety of 2007 with an ankle injury sustained in a preseason scrimmage, Williams broke out as a sophomore, becoming the team's second-leading receiver and emerging as an explosive deep threat. He led the team with three grabs of 35 yards or more, including a 64-yard touchdown bomb against NC State that was tossed by fellow receiver D.J. Boldin.
The promise and potential he displayed as a sophomore hardened into stardom as a junior, when he finished fourth in the ACC with 60 receptions and earned his place in the Deacon record books with one of the top seasons any Wake Forest receiver has ever achieved. Blossoming into Riley Skinner's top target, Williams recorded 867 receiving yards, the sixth-best total for one season in school history. His personal peak occurred in late September of 2009 against Boston College, when he hauled in a career-best 12 catches for 180 yards and the game-tying touchdown with 11 seconds remaining in regulation.
"It just felt like the wheels kept turning [that day]," said Williams about the super performance in Chestnut Hill. "I just felt in rhythm and, after a while, I was like, `wow!' With any receiver, once you get that train going, all of a sudden it's out of control. You start gaining confidence. I just remember thinking, `how many balls have I caught?' At the end of the game when we had to tie the game and they called this route, I was like `I've been open on this route a lot today.' When he threw it and I caught it, I was like, `this is the best game I've played.'"
Though the Deacons suffered a crushing overtime setback, the dozen-grab afternoon for Williams cemented his status as one of the top receivers in the ACC. As autumn progressed, it also forced defenses to focus more on him, opening space for fellow downfield threats like Devon Brown and Chris Givens, who also squeezed 61 and 45 receptions, respectively, over the course of the season.
This year, Williams says that he, Brown, and Givens call themselves the "Three Amigos," a moniker that symbolizes their friendship and ability to support each other and their stable of rookie quarterbacks. While all-everything QB Riley Skinner has moved on after graduation in 2009, the triumvirate of talented pass-catchers has provided experience and guidance to the Deacon offense while the new signal-callers are finding their way.
"When [true freshman] Tanner [Price] gets his mechanics and gets his confidence that he can do it, he's going to be great," explained Williams. "That boy can throw the ball.
"I feel like we've shown great promise. [Redshirt freshman running back] Josh Harris stepped up and he'll be great in the future. Plus, we've got some young guys on defense that are really stepping up. I really feel like Demon Deacon football won't be down for long. I'm just hoping it turns around this year so I can go somewhere for the holidays."
While Marshall's route-running acumen and overall leadership persona characterize his personality with the Deacs, fans might think of him as the trick-play wizard, who, on multiple occasions, has served as the spark to a surprise. In Wake's 54-48 victory over Duke in week two, it was not Williams' receiving skills, but his rocket arm, that delivered the longest play of the day, an 81-yard touchdown pass to Givens in the second quarter. The play was Williams' fourth straight collegiate completion (without a single incomplete throw in the mix) and his first scoring toss.
"When I looked and saw him taking off, I was just like, `I'm going to try and let this go as far as I can," said a grinning Williams. "The thing that surprised me was that I threw a perfect spiral. I can throw a spiral, but usually I can't put much power behind it. Maybe it was just the adrenaline of the game...Right now, when it gets called, I'm pretty confident. I've had the luck of completing every one of my passes and have had great success with it. I honestly wish we could call it more, but it's a trick play."
"There's no science to trick plays," said Wake Forest head coach Jim Grobe. "I think you tend to try and design a trick play that comes off a play you use a good bit as a bread and butter play. It could be in the throw game or the run game. When you use one, you're just praying that it works, but a lot of times, just trying it, even if it doesn't work, helps loosen people up."
According to Williams' fellow captain Russ Nenon, a unique excitement greets the huddle when Offensive Coordinator Steed Lobotzke gives a gadget call. Once the quarterback shares the play, everyone basically says, "Oh well, here we go, I hope this works."
"Coach Lobo has a great success rate at it and calls it at the great time," Nenon explains. "You're throwing the dice out there with a lot of money on the line, so it's just something that you're a little nervous doing. But it's fun. I enjoy watching it happen."
Williams has enjoyed the opportunity to show people that he is not just a receiver. He played quarterback for a couple of seasons in high school, chucking the ball around the field in a spread offense as an energetic 14-year old freshman. He wanted to be a receiver, but earned the passing gig unexpectedly when he was progressing through drills and a ball intended for him skipped in the dirt. He rifled the ball back briskly toward the quarterbacks, impressing an assistant coach, who promptly yanked him into that position grouping. He remained the starter throughout his freshman and sophomore seasons before returning to the receiver spot as a junior.
Aside from football, Williams also captained the seventh-ranked basketball team in the state at Riverside High. He possessed enough savvy on the hardwood that, during his time at Wake, a men's basketball assistant approached him to discuss the possibility of walking on to the squad, a chance that intrigued him, but one that he ultimately declined.
Having completed all requirements for his psychology major, he will receive his degree in December and head to a training facility in Atlanta, where he will continue to work out in the hope of impressing scouts at the NFL combine.
"I'm definitely going to give it a shot," said Williams, "And if the Lord hasn't blessed me in that way, then I'm definitely going to come back to school to get some more education in psychology. I want to focus on neurology. When I was learning about the brain, it was fascinating to me."
With a good brain on his shoulders and the smarts to have chosen the colors of old gold and black instead of either shade of blue, Williams is hoping to finish his Deacon career on a positive note. Whether he's catching, throwing or freeing up another teammate as a blocker or decoy, it is likely that the Durham Deac will be playing with a smile on his face.
