Boise State roster countdown 2018: Day 9, Desmond Williams

Single digits tiiiime. We’re a week and 2 days out. That’s it. After that we’ll be neck deep in game week content and, you know...actual games! With just 9 days left until kickoff, let’s take a look at #9 on the Boise State roster—Desmond Williams

#9, Desmond Williams, Sophomore, SLB

Stats

Height: 5’11”

Weight: 200 lbs.

High School: Centennial High School, Corona, CA

How’d he get to The Blue™?

A bit of a no-brainer for the Centennial High standout. He had two offers to play FBS level college ball when he pledged his services to the Broncos—Washington State and Boise State. Which makes things kind of easy, in that he only needed to choose the correct one. And the correct one he did!

A consensus 3-star recruit, Williams was rated the #120 player in the entire country and the 19th best in the state while helping his Centennial squad to a MaxPreps #2 national team ranking. As a senior, Desmond had 67 tackles (two for-loss) and an INT and was named first-team all-league for his efforts. As a junior, he garnered second-team all-league honors.

Nickname

“Dez”

Don’t overthink it.

Look-alike

The hair lends him a Jimmy Butler vibe.

Career Highlights

Academic All-MWC pick in 2017. Appeared in all 14 games for the Broncos in 2017—making one start. First-team all-league honoree as a senior at Centennial. Led team to Pac-5 title as a senior in 2015. Second-team all-league honoree as a junior in 2014. Led team to a Pac-5 title as a junior in 2014.

2018 Prospectus

With as good as Dez was last season, it’s amazing that he only started one game. Williams made his presence known early and often, however—making a game-changing strip of an endzone-bound Troy receiver in last season’s home opener and book-ending that play with a forced fumble at season’s end in the Mountain West Championship game. Williams finished 2017 with 30 tackles, 2 sacks and 2 forced fumbles—not too shabby for a redshirt freshman.

Of course, there was another freshman (this one of the “true” variety) that pushed Williams for playing time—Kekaula Kaniho, and this lad is also pretty good at the football (32 tackles, 1 sack, 1 forced fumble, 1 INT and TWO defensive scores). Now, if these two remained the tandem at SLB—I’d say we’d be pretty set at SLB (or “Nickel” on occasion) for the next 3 seasons, but Kaniho is listed at safety this season while Dez remains at SLB, so we’ll have to wait about, oh...9 days to figure out what exactly Andy Avalos’s plan for the pair is. All I know is that Williams can and should be hard to keep off the field and is sure to make plenty more impactful plays in 2018 as a sophomore. I expect his tackle and TFL numbers (he had 3 last season) to tick up slightly and I’m confident he’ll add an INT to his turnover repertoire sooner than later.

Is he on Twitter?

Yep, but you’ll get a heaping helping of retweets (@Dez07W)

Completely made up fact

Desmond answers a lot of difficult questions on the field, but if you have any other questions...specifically paint-related, I’m told you want to check in with his brother Sherwin.