PFLUGERVILLE, Texas — Football has been a big part of Jaden Williams’s life since he was in the third grade.
“Football was really my first love and I really liked it,” said Williams.
He was also really good at it and his talent and hard work have turned into opportunities to play at the college level.
“It was really exciting. I knew my hard work was paying off,” Williams said about colleges starting to reach out to him.
With college interest comes some hard decisions about how to pick the right school. The Pflugerville Hendrickson senior wide receiver has had some ups and downs trying to figure out the recruiting process.
“One thing I learned the most is you can’t rush things,” said Williams. “I tried to rush a lot of things, choices I made.”
Back in the summer Williams verbally committed to play football at Louisiana. But not long after that, he flipped his commitment from Louisiana to Tulane. A few weeks ago he decided to step back from that commitment and reevaluate his decision.
“I’m looking into things I really didn’t look into at the beginning of the recruiting process,” said Williams. “I’m looking into how many receivers are there, who’s leaving, the coaches. I’m going into more detail on my decision.”
Trying to navigate the recruiting process can be tricky. A prospect like Williams is getting tons of mail from colleges, constant calls and text messages from coaches and pressure to commit. It’s easy to get caught up in all the attention--something Williams’s parents are trying to help him deal with.
“We talked and now he’s kind of taking it slower,” said Raymond Williams, Jaden Williams’s father. “Get to a good place and a good school where he can make an impact.”
Part of the reason for Williams to back off his earlier commitments is that more colleges from bigger conferences have started to show interest. That comes as he’s performed at a high level so far during his senior season. It has led to offers from programs like Boston College and Utah.
“He wants to be on a big stage and to me, I’m like why not,” said Raymond Williams.
Jaden Williams is now taking his time to make what he expects to be his final decision. He’s thinking that decision might come in December, but that he won’t officially sign until February.
“What I want to do I can do it,” said Williams. “Make sure I need to make the decision of where I want to be the next three to four years.”
“We’re just ready for him to go onto this next chapter of life and we just want him to be successful in what he does,” said Raymond Williams.
Jaden Williams is also one of the top basketball players in Central Texas. He was originally thinking about playing both football and basketball in college. Some schools, like Tulane, were going to give him that option but he’s leaning more to just playing football because with the schedules overlapping, it would be hard to do both in college.