SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The raw track speed, the big frame, the almost excessive familiarity with the Notre Dame campus and its football program, and a maturity beyond his years was a great head start on the next chapter for Cam Williams.
Three weeks into the early enrolled freshman wide receiver’s first spring semester and winter workouts, he’s already hit his first plot twist.
And embraced it.
“Obviously, stuff in high school, I was able to get away with,” Williams said Friday during a round of media interviews with the Irish football newcomers on offense. “But I know here, details are a big thing. And I can accept, as a route-runner, I know I need work.
“It's easy to just run straight as fast as you can and catch the ball. So, something like route-running and footwork I've already been working [on] and getting that better. So, I have no doubts, I'll be able to achieve the status of a route-runner that I want to be.”
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The evolution of his position group, as a whole, is critical to Notre Dame’s ambition of making the College Football Playoff’s first 12-team field in December.
The Irish (10-3 in 2023) have the quantity, with nine of the pieces of the positions group’s puzzle set to participate in spring practice beginning on a date-to-be-determined next month, with another two — freshman Logan Saldate and Clemson transfer Beaux Collins — joining them and enrolling in June.
It’s the quality that’s the unknown.
Six of the 11, including Williams, are newcomers to the Irish program. So too, essentially, is sophomore-to-be KK Smith, with zero catches and one snap in his only game appearance of 2023, ND’s 40-8 Sun Bowl smackdown of Oregon State on Dec. 29 in El Paso, Texas.
Three of the other four — seniors Jayden Thomas and Deion Colzie as well as sophomore Jaden Greathouse — all missed some game action due to injuries and were physically compromised in multiple games trying to play through those limitations.
Sun Bowl MVP, sophomore Jordan Faison, was healthy throughout the season. But he didn’t play in any of the first six games of the season, as the Irish coaching staff assessed whether it was worth making the lacrosse recruit/football walk-on a scholarship football player, a default setting by the NCAA as soon as he took his first game snap.
The 6-foot-2, 191-pound Williams — as the No. 46 player nationally in the 2024 class, per Rivals — has higher recruiting pedigree than any of them, as well as almost every other wide receiver the Irish have signed since Rivals began ranking players and recruiting classes in the 2002 recruiting cycle.
In fact, suburban Chicago product joins a short list of four others with top 50 overall ratings in their respective cycles coming out of high school — Rhema McKnight (2002), Duval Kamara (2007), Michael Floyd (2008) and Jordan Johnson (2020), the latter of whom played this past season at Iowa Western Community College after two statistic-less seasons at UCF.
“Notre Dame needed to get more speed at wide receiver, and Cam Williams certainly checks that box with a legit 4.4 [40-yard dash] time,” said longtime recruiting analyst Tom Lemming of the Glen Ellyn (Ill.) Glenbard South High four-star prospect.
“He averaged 25 yards a catch last season, and there’s not a lot of high school receivers who can say that. How good will he be at Notre Dame? His maturity helps. He’s very much like [Notre Dame head coach] Marcus Freeman was when he was a high school recruit — like a 30-year-old in an 18-year-old’s body.”
Williams will most likely be competing with FIU grad transfer Kris Mitchell, Smith and fellow freshman Micah Gilbert for playing time in 2024 at the field receiver position. The two players who saw the most reps there last season for Notre Dame, Rico Flores Jr. and Tobias Merriweather, each opted after the regular season to transfer — to UCLA and Cal, respectively.
“It's definitely not a walk in the park,” Williams said of the process of adapting to Notre Dame and his push up the depth chart. “Now, I’ve got to be 100% in the weight room and then walk my way to class and be 100% there. And I knew that coming in.
“But I think … to be able to do both of those at the same levels [has] been kind of like a shock, but manageable.”
Making it more manageable for Williams has been Duke transfer quarterback Riley Leonard, the favorite to emerge from the upcoming spring quarterback competition as the No. 1 option for the Irish at his position.
“Since day one, I think me and him were able to bond closely, as a quarterback and receivers should,” Williams said. “And he's been really good with us, like younger guys, bringing us under his wing and kind of like. What's the word?
“He's good at bringing us in and including us, making sure we're feeling comfortable here, because I mean, yeah, he's new too, but you can tell he's just like a natural leader. He's here with all the same goals that we have, and that's to win football games.”
The Irish, still without a complete announced 2024 schedule, open the season Aug. 31 at Texas A&M. With a new offensive coordinator, Mike Denbrock in his third tour of duty at ND, a new wide receivers coach and Mike Brown, and new expectations to go along with all that.
“Even with the transfer guys and Micah and I as freshmen coming into this room, we can all accept that this entire room has changed and needs change,” Williams said. “And we all want to be part of that change.”
Projected Spring Wide Receiver Depth Charts
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