From Hooper to Tight End, Jalen Williams Thrilled With Pitt Offer

Traditionally, there have been plenty of quality tight ends at the college level who were serious basketball players. That was the case for Jalen Williams, who earned an offer from the Pitt Panthers late last week.

Located southwest of Indianapolis at Bloomington (Ind.) Bloomington North High School, Williams worked through his basketball-to-football transition in the fall as a 6-foot-5 receiver.

Now he’s beginning to attract Power Four attention.

On Friday, Williams announced an offer from Pitt, his first at the highest level of college football.

To learn more about the Midwestern tight end recruit and to get his reaction to his new college opportunity, Inside the Panthers spoke with Williams on Monday.

A Power Four school, I imagine you were pretty excited to add Pitt to your offer list recently. Can you talk about that?

“Landing that offer, it was big-time, basically my first real D-I offer. Coming from an ACC school was really special to me since it's really my first year of real football coming from basketball, the transition, and just picking up that offer…was just really special to me.”

Tell me more about that transition from basketball to football.

“I played basketball all my life. That was my first love. That was what I wanted to do whenever I got older in college and everything. Basically, I played football in middle school and I liked it, but then when I got to high school, I never played until my junior year.

“I had a pretty good season for my first year, and then I kind of fell in love with it. My recruiting was just way better than basketball. I started to fall in love and find more opportunities.”

A lot of basketball players successfully transition into college tight end prospects. Was that a move that was obvious to you?

“Oh yeah, most definitely because I’ve always been told I have the athletic ability and everything. So, once I get my route running done, that that could be really good.”

Can you tell me more about when you landed the Pitt offer?

“First, I spoke with my trainer Dre Muhammad. He's helped me a lot through this process. He's been training with me for two months and he's helped a lot with everything, footwork, and just a lot of running in general. Then I talked to my mom, was really happy with her. We had a long talk and she was just telling me how proud she was.”

Can you tell me about your thoughts on Pitt, the school and the program?

“I talked to Coach (Kade) Bell. He showed me a lot about the campus, and about the locker room and everything. It’s definitely an amazing place that I like. Pittsburgh's a nice area. Yeah, it was a cool experience to just see. I mean, I haven't gone down there yet, but it was cool to see kind of what Pittsburgh football is like and everything.

“He told me all about the offense and how they run stuff down there and I like it.”

Do you think you’ll visit Pitt this off-season?

“Yeah, I can definitely see myself going out there. We talked about setting up a visit in the spring.”

What is your height and weight right now, and what have you been working on this off-season?

“My current height/weight is 6-5, 215. I played football, played my junior year at 205, so I’ve just been putting on a lot of muscle…Everything I'm working on right now is just mainly footwork, my route running, and just building muscle and everything.”

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