Izayia Williams missed his entire senior season due to a torn ACL, and yet he still arrived on campus in Tallahassee this offseason as the Seminoles’ second-highest-ranked 2026 recruit. Now, the buzz is growing as the Tavares, Florida native is fully cleared and flashing in his first fall camp at Florida State.
Head coach Mike Norvell was asked about Williams on Friday, following Day 3 of fall camp, and one particular detail of his assessment stands out above the rest.
“The tackling circuit that we do, the very first reps: speed, explosive, violent. I was jumping on him, draped all over him, so it was a pretty fun first rep for him,” Norvell said following the first day in pads this camp.
“He’s got the skill set, the traits; you can see there was no hesitation. Which, you know, coming off an injury, first time out there in pads, it was great to see.”
Mike Norvell highlights Izayia Williams’ lack of hesitation in first padded practice
It’s the last part that piqued my interest. Coming off a major non-contact injury like an ACL tear, it often takes much longer for the player to trust that their body is back to 100% than it does to get it there. The final piece is playing without that hesitation and without any other physical compensation, which could lead to other injuries along the kinetic chain.
Williams seems to have cleared that bar after his ACL tear. He’s over a year out now, and while he didn’t participate in spring, he was running full speed back in March per a conversation with Noles247. That’s a long runway for him to get right, and now it seems as though he’s back to the athletic freak who was ranked as the No. 137 player in the country by 247Sports Composite and the No. 8 linebacker.
Can a strong fall camp vault Izayia Williams up the depth chart?
Now, the question is whether Norvell and defensive coordinator Tony White will trust their true freshman dynamo to play meaningful snaps in a linebacker group that desperately needs an infusion of speed. Proving that will likely come down to the mental, not the physical side of the game for Williams, who hasn’t played competitive football in a while and never at the collegiate level.
Some players are just different, though, and maybe Williams is one of them. If so, he’ll enter a battle with North Carolina transfer Mikai Gbayor, who has been limited at the start of camp, and Blake Nichelson, who played 420 snaps for the Seminoles last year and finished with 43 tackles.
Southern Miss transfer and tackling machine Chris Jones will occupy the other linebacker spot in White’s 3-3-5 defense, which typically features a JACK linebacker who serves more as an edge rusher than a true off-ball player. Jones is expected to wear the green dot for the defense and was brought in to be that sideline-to-sideline player.
Jones, too, is making a jump to the ACC level after dominating the Sun Belt. So, like Williams, he’ll be learning to play without a massive physical advantage over his competition, as Williams had in high school. Jones, however, has the experience to know where to be, and a fast trigger at linebacker can be more important than a fast runner.
Whether or not Williams works his way onto the field could be determined by what Jones shows in fall camp as much as his own play. If White trusts Jones to be responsible at the heart of the defense, they may take a chance on Williams’ upside, allowing him to play free and fast and live with the mistakes.
If Jones is making mistakes of his own, however. It would be hard not to stick a veteran like Nichelson or Gbayor next to him to solidify the second level.
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