Big Man on Campus : Hard Work Helps Ex-Mater Dei Lineman Williams Make Mark at Notre Dame

Mater Dei Coach Bruce Rollinson always said Brad Williams was the most intense practice player on the football team, but let’s get real. The guy was 6 feet 4, 273 pounds and a USA Today first-team All-American. Charles Haley on the loose in a Pop Warner game. He would have been starting for the Monarchs if he brought a sack lunch and a chaise longue to practice.

Williams made 66 tackles--22 of them behind the line of scrimmage--had five sacks, broke up eight passes, caused four fumbles and recovered three others as a senior at Mater Dei. But when he got to Notre Dame and was suiting up in a locker room full of guys with bulging prep scrapbooks, that week-day work ethic earned him a surprisingly quick opportunity to fight for the Irish.

Williams spent the first half of this season rehabilitating a stress fracture in his right foot, then spent the next couple weeks making life miserable for the starting offensive linemen as a member of the scout team.

His efforts didn’t go unnoticed.

Lou Holtz was driving home from a press conference--where he told reporters he had absolutely no idea who would replace injured right guard Mike Rosenthal--when visions of Williams shoving around his starters popped into his head. Before he pulled in the driveway, he had made his decision, one he admitted two days later might be “insane.”

It turned out to be divine madness for Williams.

On the Tuesday before Notre Dame’s game against Navy in Dublin, Ireland, Williams was told Holtz was looking for him. Williams wasn’t sure whether to be anxious or eager. Mostly, he was baffled. He wasn’t listed on the two-deep defensive charts and thought he was going to be a redshirt this year. His grades were OK. And “I had been absolutely busting my butt” in practice.

“He was in meetings when I got there, so I suited up and waited,” Williams said. “A lot was going through my mind, but I had no idea what he wanted.”

Holtz got right to the point. “You play harder than anyone I’ve known,” he said. “I want you to come over and play offense because we need the help.”

Williams, who had not taken a single snap with the offense since arriving at Notre Dame, stammered something akin to “Yes, sir.”

Was he supposed to be ecstatic? In fact, he was disheartened.

“I was disappointed because I came here to play defense,” he said. “He said it would only be for the remainder of the year at most, but you know how that goes. I wasn’t sure they weren’t moving me over for good.

“But then when he told me to get a white shirt on and to go with the [starters], I got excited. I realized I was going to play my first college game in Ireland and my dad was going to be there.”

With Holtz instructing him on his responsibilities, the Irish offense ran through every play they might use against Navy . . . once. Then they got on the plane bound for Ireland. So much for that novel and the textbooks; Williams was transfixed by the playbook.

“I had left a week earlier on a tour with some friends,” said Williams’ father, John, “and Brad finally got ahold of me Thursday night. We talked for a while and were about to hang up when he said, ‘Oh yeah, Dad, I’m starting.’

“My first reaction was, ‘Who all got hurt?’ Renaldo Wynn, the senior who starts in Brad’s spot, is probably going to be a first-round pick in the NFL draft. Then he told me he was starting on offense. The first thing I said was, ‘Brad, are you ready for this?’ ”

A very nervous father-and-son team arrived at Dublin’s Croke Park Saturday. Soon, however, they both relaxed and were having a great time as the Irish beat Navy, 54-27. According to the Notre Dame coaches, Williams missed only four assignments all day.

Son: “I didn’t get much sleep the night before and I was really nervous during warmups. But after the first hit, it was really fun. I don’t know how I was doing technique-wise, but my intensity was there.”

Father: “I was worried that he’d be jumping offsides and getting called for holding all day, but he made only one mistake I saw, when he came up in a pass-blocking stance on a run play. And they were running behind him all game. It was great.”

John Williams, who played basketball at Texas A & M, thought his son would follow his steps to the hoop. And Brad, always a head taller than his classmates, clearly excelled on the basketball court when playing on youth traveling clubs that twice won age-group national titles.

“Basketball was just life to me growing up,” Williams said. “I played on year-round teams up through eighth grade. I always thought I’d become a pro basketball player.”

His dad wasn’t so sure, however. He didn’t doubt his son’s athletic prowess, but was very concerned about--Are you ready for this?--lapses in focus and intensity.

“It seemed like half the time, Brad wasn’t in the game,” he said, “but if he got fouled hard, he’d get mad and his game would increase a hundred-fold. I used to joke with friends that I’d wish someone would punch him in the mouth.

“Then he started playing football and when he’s butting heads all the time, I guess that keeps his attention up.”

Notre Dame defensive backfield coach Tom McMahon told Williams that his son was playing with such enthusiasm on the scout team, that “they had to take him out so they could run the plays, and Coach Holtz was pretty upset.”

Williams’ enthusiasm for football practice was never tapped until high school. His parents wouldn’t allow him to play Pop Warner because leagues are formed by weight, not age, and they didn’t want him competing against kids two years older.

“He’s always been a big kid,” John Williams said, “but he was real lanky when he was younger. I was worried about his knees. You give away a lot of strength to kids who are two years older.”

Williams really didn’t mind. After all, basketball was “just life.” His size and agility were so obvious, however, that his football-playing buddies finally convinced him he would be a great tight end and he went out for the freshman team at El Modena High.

He played tight end and linebacker and had fun. But his heart and mind were still more at home in the gym, where he was starting forward on the varsity.

Williams left El Modena the next year--along with many of the varsity coaches--because of budget cuts. “It was obvious where that program was going,” he said. He transferred to Mater Dei and there he played both sports, but began what seems an inevitable transition of emphasis from basketball to football.

He was ineligible to play varsity for the first year after transferring, so he played outside linebacker on the sophomore team. That spring, he practiced with the varsity and was switched from linebacker to lineman.

“My junior year, I started on varsity,” Williams said. “I had gotten a lot stronger and a lot quicker and I had a really good year.”

It might have been even better had John Williams listened to those who advised him to hold his son back a year in junior high.

“I had a lot of people trying to get me to hold him back,” John Williams said, “but he was already taller than the other kids and he was in the GATE program making great grades. It just didn’t seem right.”

His senior season he was named The Times Orange County’s lineman of the year.

John Williams and Rollinson were chatting recently when the Mater Dei coach wondered aloud what kind of season Brad would be having on the high school fields of Orange County if the decision had been made to hold him back.

“He said some of the other coaches would’ve just forfeited,” Williams said. “Brad has matured very fast.”

Williams’ fling as a starting right guard--which included starts against Navy and Boston College--is over. He’ll be a back-up defensive lineman Saturday when the Irish face USC at the Coliseum. But his career at Notre Dame is just beginning.

“Defense is where I’m most comfortable,” he said. “It’s where I want to play. But that game in Ireland was a great way to start my career, worth giving up a year of eligibility for. The fans were great, the whole atmosphere was unbelievable.”

It will make a nice story for the grandchildren, but Holtz figures it will be reduced to footnote status in a soon-to-be-lengthy bio.

“It was obvious to me when I first saw him, even before we put on pads, that he had this awareness, this intensity,” Holtz said. “I thought then that he could help us this year and I didn’t even realize at the time he was one of smartest players I’ve ever been around.

“That’s why I had no qualms about putting him at guard. There was no risk. And I wasn’t trying to send a message to any other players that might have been ahead of him on the offensive line. I learned a long time ago to put the guys out there who give you the best chance to win.

“Brad could play offense, but I think he’s going to be a really great defensive lineman. If somebody can play both offense and defense, you play them on defense. And I’m telling you, if he didn’t get that stress fracture, people would have heard a lot about Brad Williams by now.”

And it wouldn’t have had anything to do with skill as a right guard.