Senior cornerback Michael Williams' junior year should have helped lay the cornerstone for a great season next fall, believes Viking Defensive Coordinator Eric Jackson.
     
“Williams had a good year and we're looking for him to have a great year next season” said Jackson of the highly recruited athlete out of Aldine High School in Houston, TX.  Williams was this year's recipient of the Robert  E. Taylor endowed scholarship.
       
For his part, Williams said he thought his game got better.
     
“I started taking advantage of the techniques I was being taught about how to play well on the field. I was trying to do everything I was expected to do, to make sure I was playing the ball,” he said.
     
To him that meant learning to sense where a receiver was without having to have physical contact and to keep track of where the ball was.  “I also tried to focus on not getting penalties. You have to sense where the receiver is without touching him,” Williams said.
     
Williams played against some top receivers last season, said Jackson. And, at 5'9”, he was at a height disadvantage against some of them.
     
"I try to use my advantage. I try to use my speed. That's my advantage,” he said.
     
Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, said Jackson.
     
“There's no better teacher than experience and he got a lot of that this year (starting all 11 games). He played against some top receivers this year.  Sometimes he batted the ball down, sometimes he got beaten,” said Jackson. But, “he's fast and fearless.  He's a leader and he's learning that role more and more.”

In fact, Williams ranked fifth on the team with 40 tackles. His late fourth-quarter interception sealed a 42-35 win at Idaho State on Oct. 1.
     
Williams had a good year in the classroom, too, earning a 3.75 GPA spring term and is carrying a 3.0 cumulative GPA overall.  He's on track to graduate next summer with a degree in social science and is thinking about graduate school. He hasn't decided on a career at this point.
     
His expectation for next year on the field is to “continue getting better at playing the ball.”
    
To do that, he said, he has to get stronger.  That means a summer in the weight room.
    
But, if he lives up to his own and Jackson's expectations, it'll be time well spent.