Texas made a major move in the 2025 recruiting cycle Saturday evening, when Top247 five-star Jonah Williams announced his commitment to the Longhorns. In Williams, Texas gets a potentially role-versatile back-seven defender who wears the No. 1 linebacker label in the Top247 rankings, but realistically could stay at the safety spot he’s played so well during his time at Galveston (Texas) Ball.
Don’t get hung up on the relative positional ambiguity; Williams, No. 7 overall in the Top247, is the type of athlete you get to campus and figure all of that out later. If designated to the secondary from a projection standpoint, Williams would sit atop the safety board in the 2025 Top247 rankings, just the same as he does at linebacker. Some schools have even talked about Williams playing receiver, which certainly makes sense. He’s a deserving top 10 overall prospect at this point in the process because of his excellent multi-phase playmaking context and wild athletic profile.
That athletic background includes promising junior-year 200-meter reps of 22.24 and 22.34 seasons, per MileSplit, and the potential to become a high-round draft pick in not only football, but also baseball. Additionally, Williams is a high-flying, above-the-rim finisher on the basketball floor. Hoops participation so many times reveals itself in the athletic profiles of countless NFL draftees.