‘Sack Man’ James Williams finds role with Nebraska football

Almost daily the Nebraska sophomore spends hours around what he believes is the best defensive line room in the country. On Tuesday he mentioned a handful of guys, including “the big three” of Nash Hutmacher, Ty Robinson and Jimari Butler.

But Williams, a former walk-on, wanted everybody to know he belongs.

“I do feel like I deserve to be out there with those guys,” Williams said. “I feel like I can bring it just as much as any one of those guys can.”

Even after not starting until his senior year of high school, beginning his college career at a community college and strictly watching from the sidelines for his first two months with the Huskers.

“The only person that’s gonna stop James is James,” NU defensive coordinator Tony White said.

Williams — a 6-foot-6, 250-pound pass rusher from Parkville, Missouri — graduated from Park Hill South with no offers despite more than 100 tackles and 18 sacks in his senior year. He was the conference defender of the year and a finalist for the area’s coveted Buck Buchanan Award.

That led him to Iowa Central, where he worked on his grades and hunted quarterbacks for a year. And in his lone season there, Williams had 19 tackles, seven stops for loss, six sacks and helped the Tritons hold opponents to fewer than 100 yards rushing a game.

Then Rob Dvoracek, Nebraska’s linebacker coach, invited Williams to the Huskers’ post-graduate camp last summer. He impressed and caught the attention of defensive line coach Terrance Knighton and coach Matt Rhule.

Williams joined the team in July as a walk-on. His first snaps weren’t until mid-October.

It all happened in a matter of months. It didn’t feel like it to Williams, though.

“I actually didn’t think it was fast at all. I thought that was slow and a grind,” Williams said.

“I wasn’t really focused when I first got here, and having to quickly learn the playbook and pick up different aspects of it, I really felt like most of that was attributed to Coach White and T-Knight and Nash, Ty and Jimari all kind of getting me ready for the moment. It felt like it took forever to get to that point.”

That changed midway through the fall after weeks of standout play on scout team caught the coaches’ attention.

In his debut — with five minutes remaining and the Northwestern needing the end zone — Williams dropped quarterback Brendan Sullivan for a 5-yard loss that forced the Wildcats to punt.

Williams showed flashes in the thick of NU’s Big Ten schedule. The pass rusher was disruptive in limited snaps. He finished with four tackles, two of them sacks.

“When you get him on the grass and you just let him go and let him play and he knows what to do,” White said of Williams, “he’s a special player.”

After Williams stood out, Rhule brought him in to talk about his redshirt.

Williams could’ve played in the final two games against Wisconsin and Iowa, but doing so — playing in one of them, even — would’ve burned his eligibility. As a pass-rush specialist, he figured he wouldn’t play much against the run-heavy Hawkeyes anyway.

And if there’s one thing Williams learned through the monthlong stretch leading up his conversation with Rhule, it was that he needed to take better care of his body.

Williams didn’t feel as springy and athletic for Maryland, he said, which was admittedly one of the worst games he’s ever played. After that day and some self-reflection, he didn’t feel like he could give the Huskers the best version of himself the rest of the way.

He essentially entered the offseason early — and kept his redshirt in the process.

“I hit a freshman wall last year. In the NFL they talk about your rookie wall, like you’ve played about 10 games and all the sudden your body kind of gives out on you,” Williams said. “I kind of felt like my body hated me.”

This offseason was about more than Williams adding to his skill set. More importantly, it was about transforming his body.

Williams, undersized in the most physical conference in the country, knows he has to play the position differently than Hutmacher and Robinson, who are both listed at 310 pounds. To make a difference, he said, he has to give 100% energy on each play while other people might be able to get by giving 80% across more snaps.

Williams started last year at 235 pounds. He weighed 228 when he showed up for winter workouts. Now he’s hovering around 250.

He did it, he said, through spending more time in the brand-new, state-of-the-art training facility. That part helped with recovery from the day-to-day wear and tear that comes with the role, during both the season and summer.

The other half — the name of the game, he said — was nutrition.

“I’ve had a problem; I have a really high metabolism. Keeping food down, for me, is hard. Even eating is hard,” Williams said. “It’s really hard sometimes, especially when I feel like I’m about to puke and they’re throwing another sandwich in front of me.”

This time of year is hard to get through, Williams said. This week, in particular, is the hardest. The Huskers have reached the “lull” of training camp.

Nebraska is a couple weeks into the fall. There are still a couple weeks until the season opener against UTEP. It’s the time when the excitement from the first week has worn off and the excitement for the first game hasn’t fully set in.

Williams thinks it’s the best week of camp, though. It’s when you find out who’s going to push through and go to battle with you when the season officially arrives, he said.

So he’s fine with whatever this week brings. It isn’t anything he hasn’t already been through.

“I want to the best version of myself,” Williams said, “and that means I have to go through the hard stuff to get there.”