A Big Hit at Arizona State

Coming out of Irvine High, Arizona State’s Alfred Williams knew he belonged on the same field with DeShaun Foster and Carson Palmer. He just didn’t have the statistics or the video library to prove it.

So as Tustin’s Foster and Santa Margarita’s Palmer stole the headlines and captured the hearts of the big local colleges, Williams waited by the phone and wondered if anyone would remember that he was a pretty good football player before he banged up his knee a game into his senior season at Irvine.

Arizona State’s coaches remembered and never stopped believing, but Williams hasn’t forgotten the Pacific 10 Conference schools that left him out of their plans. And now that he is healthy and starting at free safety for the undefeated Sun Devils, he is more than happy to remind coaches what they missed by delivering one helmet-rattling hit after another.

“There’s really no bitterness,” said Williams, a redshirt sophomore who is among Arizona State’s leading tacklers heading into the Rose Bowl for Saturday night’s game against UCLA. “But, I really do like to go to all these schools who had me high on their list and then just dropped me.”

Before he hyper-extended his knee during a practice, Williams was being wooed by most Pac-10 schools, including UCLA, and some Big Ten schools as a running back or a defensive back. Used mainly as a blocking back as a junior, Williams showed the ability to flatten linebackers and outrun defensive backs as a ball carrier. In the 1997 season opener, he rushed for 228 yards in a victory over University High in Irvine.

But once Williams was injured, Irvine Coach Terry Henigan had a hard time convincing coaches that Williams was worth the gamble.

“College guys don’t like to recruit people without video and we didn’t have much of Alfred,” Henigan said. “He barely played any defense, and we didn’t feature him at running back. They don’t believe me when I say he’s good.”

But Dan Cozzetto, then Arizona State’s offensive coordinator and now an assistant at Oregon State, took Henigan at his word.

“Anybody who knows me knows I don’t play up my kids to coaches,” Henigan said. “I told them, ‘This guy is going to play in the Pac-10.’ He was just too good of an athlete. He had great character and toughness and he loved to hit people.

“He was kind of a hidden talent. He had such a frustrating high school football career, I don’t think anybody outside of Irvine knew how good he was.”

In the spring, after he had signed with Arizona State, Williams began to show what he can do when healthy. He won the state 300-meter hurdles in 37.17 seconds.

When he arrived in Tempe, Ariz., in the fall of 1998, Coach Bruce Snyder placed the hard-hitting Williams at outside linebacker. Williams’ mind was ready for the challenge of playing linebacker, but his body wasn’t.

During a scrimmage, he collided with 230-pound fullback Jeff Paulk. “My arms just went limp,” Williams said.

Two games into the season, Williams’ arms went numb again after colliding with a Brigham Young player.

“I’ve always loved to hit people, but that got me in trouble at linebacker,” he said. “I was playing linebacker in a defensive back’s body [at 194 pounds].”

Arizona State doctors kept Williams on the sideline the rest of his freshman season. Since he played in only two games, he was given a medical redshirt year.

Last season, Williams started seven games at strong safety--he missed four others with recurring stingers--and he began to develop a nickname for his ferocious hits.

Snyder called him “HMO.” His teammates prefer “Son-Wu” because of his interest in Zen philosophy and his love for martial arts, which he inherited from his father Alfred Sr., a chief warrant officer in the U.S. Marines and a black belt in jujitsu.

“I’ve always liked the warrior attitude of not having regard for yourself, having no fear of anyone,” Williams said. “I believe that living like that is going to keep you healthy. Because you’re not tentative about anything you do.”

Ron English, Arizona State’s secondary coach, might disagree. He described Williams as somewhat tentative last year at strong safety.

“He was kind of mechanical,” English said. “Instincts come by knowing what to do and he wasn’t sure of himself.”

Williams still caused his share of violent collisions and finished tied for sixth on the team in tackles with 50, despite missing the four games. Against UCLA, Williams caused a fumble deep in Bruins’ territory that helped rally Arizona State to a 28-27 comeback victory.

Since switching to free safety this season, Williams seems to be hitting harder and with more frequency. He has also been stinger-free since adding three inches of muscle, or padding, to his neck.

“I actually understand the defense this year,” he said. “I know why I’m here. I’m just playing instead of worrying about messing up.”

Though they are friends, Williams said he plans on messing up Foster’s Pac-10 championship dreams on Saturday.

“He’s a real good runner,” Williams said. “We know we have to shut him down. We have to work on our balance because he is a great cutback runner.

“For me, this is a huge game. It’s a homecoming and it has Pac-10 championship and national implications.”

With Arizona State struggling on offense because of a season-ending injury to halfback Delvon Flowers and a two-game suspension of quarterback Ryan Kealy, Williams realizes the pressure is on the defense, which is yielding 12.3 points a game, second in the Pac-10 and 13th in the nation.

“Our defensive coaches start every pep talk, with ‘We know the offense isn’t going to score many points,’ ” he said. “So we’re used to this. It’s a test of our character. We don’t have the luxury of making mistakes.”

Thanks to the Sun Devil coaching staff’s faith in a recruit hardly anyone else wanted, the luxury of having Williams patrol their secondary is all theirs.

“We’re lucky,” English said. “He’s a fantastic player and a tough sucker. He snaps those hips and runs through people. He’s going to be a great player before he leaves here.”