The moment it happened was always going to be revealing — a dynamic offensive player in the open field and Texas Longhorns sophomore safety Jonah Williams tasked with making the tackle and trusting his surgically-repaired shoulder.
Within the first three plays of Saturday’s scrimmage at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, the moment arrived, as redshirt junior running back Hollywood Smothers found a running lane. For Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian, expectation is for Smothers to make the defender
miss — after all, the Oklahoma and NC State transfer forced 49 missed tackles last season, gaining 614 of his 939 rushing yards after contact.
Instead, Williams made the tackle, the type of play that prompted one scrimmage observer to call Williams the defensive MVP.
The journey back to making tackles in a game-like environment started during the spring when Williams and his family opted to undergo surgery that ended his sophomore baseball season after only eight games.
“I think one thing was when we made the decision — our staff, the baseball staff, Jonah, and his family — to have the surgery when he had it, which obviously sacrificed the remainder of his baseball season, that was somewhat strategic to get him ready for training camp because that allowed the rehab time to happen during the spring, that allowed for June and July for him to start kind of our PRP activities, the strength and conditioning program, the running with Coach [Torre] Becton, and that allowed him to be fully cleared for training camp,” Sarkisian said on Monday.
For Williams, regaining trust in his shoulder did take some time once preseason camp began less than two weeks ago.
“Any time you have a shoulder surgery, it’s like, can I really trust this thing to tackle and to be physical in the way I need to play? And early on, I I think we felt some of that hesitation, but I think his trajectory has looked like this, and that’s a positive,” Sarkisian said, indicating a positive trajectory.
“So, the fact that he wasn’t just a reckless hitting everything in sight day one was not so alarming to the fact that I think what we saw Saturday was a guy who was willing to to get people on the ground and to tackle.”
If the open-field tackle on Smothers required trust, the interception in the end zone that Williams made to end the scrimmage’s first drive simply took the type of natural instincts that made the Galveston Ball product the No. 1 safety and the No. 10 overall prospect in the 2025 class, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings.
“The range that he has at safety is real, I mean, he’s an outfielder in baseball — He can track the ball, and so the interception that he made was was a very instinctual play. But you saw the ball skills. It was natural. The timing to jump to make that play. Those are all just natural instincts and skill set that he has,” said Sarkisian.
It’s a skill set that should impact Saturday’s this fall with Williams projected as one of the top three safeties for the Longhorns under new defensive coordinator Will Muschamp.
