Everything From Georgia Tech WR Coach Jafar Williams In His Tuesday Media Availability

Georgia Tech's WR coach talked to the media for the first time on Tuesday afternoon. Here is everything he had to say.

On the WR Competition.....

“I think that the biggest thing is competition. The guys are out there trying to compete. There are no depth charts right now in spring ball, so it's a good opportunity for you to roll ones, twos, threes, everybody through there and let everybody kind of get some reps with the ones as well. That's the biggest thing for us right now is to see who can go help us win in the fall.”

On the process of getting to Georgia Tech and taking the job….

“So I had met Coach Key actually at the bowl game when we played when they played Vandy, and we were in. Alabama, I met him before the game. George Godsey, I've kind of known over the years, we all kind of played for Ralph Friedgen. I played for Ralph Friedgen at Maryland, and he was offensive coordinator for Godsey and Coach Key, so we have some Ralph jokes at times, but we all kind of knew each other from that a little bit. So was a really good connection while I got a chance to work with both of those guys.”

On recruiting and how important relationships are…

“I still think the relationship piece is important, especially with seven on seven, not only with parents, you know, with high school coaches, there's just more people that kind of touch these guys outside of football. Track coaches are involved in that as well. But the relationship piece is still there, you know, even though guys are getting paid and those types of things, it's still about relationships. One of the things that the coach talked about here in terms of relationships is the area and the high school coaches. I've recruited Atlanta for seven years. When I was at Purdue, Maryland and Rutgers, I was in the area. I do have a feel for a lot of the coaches still in the area. There's been a lot of turnover, but I've been in the area and coached and recruited.”

On his relationship with Latrez Harrison…

“Latrez was my teammate. Funny story. First day here, I live close, and I'm in a grocery store, and some guy called my name is Trez. So we were actually college roommates. So he sounds a lot better now. Nobody could understand him back then because of his hard accent. I think being in Maryland for a couple of years, he kind of fixed that. They moved him from quarterback because he couldn't communicate with the rest of the offense. Actually, Eric Dumas was a tackle, and both of those guys were freshmen. So sometimes, Latrez get in there and says a play, and we couldn't figure out what he said. We looked at Dumas, and he told us. It was pretty neat having both of those guys.”

On what he is looking for from his wide receiver room…

“The number one thing, and I tell my guys all the time, the game honors toughness. I want tough guys, tough guys mentally, tough guys physically. It's my job as a coach to get them prepared, and we do everything in our power to make sure they have every resource possible within the time frame to do that. Right now, I'm looking for effort and toughness, and mistakes are gonna happen. We'll get those corrected, but just really that piece is gonna be important because when you get into the grind of a season, there's a lot of ups and downs. I want the guys that are gonna battle through those tough times.

On the transition for the freshmen who enrolled early….

“I'll say the benefit is getting here early. That's one of the benefits of being at Georgia Tech is we get those guys early, which is awesome. Really, you're going from a high school system to really what we run, which is an NFL system. So you're kind of skipping the college world and going straight to an NFL-type system, which is great for those guys because you want to prepare them that way. So I think it's a benefit, not necessarily something that I worry too much about. Obviously, there's a lot of volume, and we're gonna continue to push that volume to make sure we can see how much they can handle. I think that's a big evaluation portion of that.”

On the biggest thing the wide receiver group needs to do to grasp the system…

“We have a certain amount of time that we can spend with them, so it's big. I always talk to those guys about being professionals on and off the field. What that also entails is if you're only doing football when you walk in the building and when you leave, you're not doing anything, you're not really preparing yourself. We can’t give you everything you need while you're here. So you have to get that, and then you have to go back, and you have to study it, and you have to put the time in. So I think that's really one of the important things.”

On if he leans on some of the veterans to get the young guys up to speed…

“I think it's an obligation of older guys, right? These younger guys don't; they don't know what they don't know. So the older guys have kind of been through the season, been through the off-season, understand kind of what it takes to prepare yourself for a game. So they have to take them under their wing and spend time with them, and at least show them that routine. We talk a lot about routines and finding your routine so that you can have success, and that's as important, especially for freshmen.”

On how he develops his wide receivers…

“I think you gotta kinda keep it simple for him to start, right? And what that means is maybe as a freshman, a guy's learning one position to start. Then, as he starts to get comfortable, okay, let's move you inside. Now let's move you to X. You kinda take it small part because if you try to just throw all that information sometimes on, especially younger guys, they kinda struggle. I've had some guys in the past who have picked it up very, very fast. They don't come around very often. Those guys that can just pick it up day one and go out there and execute, especially when you're going from high school to college. But in terms of the whole group, it's just a matter of getting the information, making sure I'm thorough and detailed in meetings, making sure if they have questions, they come see me about it. Text chains, any way that we can communicate to make sure they understand. Pop quizzes, like we do it all. So I just want to make sure they have all the information.”

On Jordan Allen….

“Yeah, he's been able to absorb the information. So when you talk about the guys that can move around to multiple spots, he just kind of has that calmness to him that he doesn't panic. We had a couple of mishaps out there today, but he's usually the guy that can fix things and fix formations. So I appreciate that he kind of operates like an older guy, to be quite honest. But I love his demeanor. I love his attitude. I love how he comes to work in meetings. He's attentive.

I think he's trying to be a leader for the rest of the room, even though we have a bunch of young guys. He's trying to take on some of that leadership role. So that's obviously being noticed.”

On Isaiah Fuhrmann….

“We've got to get him healthy. So I didn't get a really big sample size of Zay. But obviously watching film on what he's done in past to have a bigger guy hopefully into the boundary can help us. But again, we're not necessarily worried about depth charts and who's playing where because those things kind of work themselves out as we get, you know, through the summer into fall camp. So right now, the biggest thing with Zay is to get healthy.

On his comfort level of moving Jordan Allen around…

“A lot of people say, well, what type of receivers do you like? The ones that make plays, period, the end, and that's the truth. I've been around small receivers that play big. I've been around big receivers that play small. I uh was lucky at Vandy, had a guy that was 5'8", who ran past everybody in the SEC. So to me, it really doesn't matter the size. It's really about the competitive nature of the player. Obviously, the guy's gonna go out there and compete.”