And yet, what attracted Jordan Williams to Brent Key was… the negativity.
He can’t recall if he had committed to Georgia Tech yet, but in one of his phone conversations with Key during the recruiting process, he knew he had found the school and coach for him.
“You’ve got all these college coaches when you’re getting recruited out of high school, they’re trying to hype you up and everything,” Williams recalled.
Key, on the other hand, went straight to the point.
“He told me that I, like, sucked in high school,” Williams laughed.
“He followed it up by saying that my technique as an offensive lineman has a long way to go, and he basically wanted to be the coach to help me get to where I want to go. Really, that brutal honesty and everything, I was like, ‘Yeah, I need that type of coach in my life,’” he added.
Williams has not only given Tech quotability, but durability during his five seasons on The Flats. When he and the Yellow Jackets take the field on Friday in the 118th installment of Clean, Old Fashioned Hate (7:30 p.m. ET, Georgia Tech Sports Network), Williams is set to make his 52nd career start, tying the school record held by running back Roddy Jones (2008-11).
He opted to play an additional year due to Covid-19, so he knows the asterisk may always lurk over his head. But Williams said he didn’t realize until midway through this season that he could challenge the all-time record.
“That caught me off guard. I double-checked and looked at it. I was like, ‘What?’” he said.
Williams shrugged. “I guess it does make sense. I’ve been here a while.”
He’s also been on the ground floor of a painstaking rebuild of the Georgia Tech offensive line, which began after Key returned to his alma mater in January 2019. Key first scouted Williams at a University of Alabama lineman camp the summer before his junior year at Gainesville High School. Williams didn’t meet Key at the camp, but found out years later that he had pulled some strings to get him to attend. Williams wound up being named one of the camp’s top performers.
Key wouldn’t come to Tech for another six months, tasked with completely overhauling the Yellow Jackets’ offensive line. Little did he realize how valuable that recruit would become for him.
“I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs with those guys, man. I really have,” Key said, his voice catching, when speaking about Williams on his weekly radio show.
“There’s a special bond with those guys that you’ve coached as a position coach, and now you’re seeing those guys getting ready to take the next step in their life.”
The first step in Williams’ Georgia Tech career started off inauspiciously. Key joked that he needed a cattle scale to weigh him when he arrived for his first preseason camp following the months-long Covid shutdown in August of 2020. He insisted the scales at the Brock Indoor Facility stopped at 360 pounds and creaked when Williams stepped on one. Williams, always quick with a riposte, says he weighed no more than 355.
The Yellow Jackets would need his size regardless; Key plugged him in at right tackle for his first career start in the season opener at Florida State.
Georgia Tech rallied to win 16-13. Asked for his recollections that night, Williams of course has an anecdote. With the stifling humidity in Tallahassee, made worse by a pregame lightning delay, Williams knew he had to stay hydrated.
Maybe too hydrated, he found out. At one point, as they sat in a huddle on the sideline, Williams disclosed to his line mates that he needed to go to the bathroom. A group of them – Key included, he’s pretty sure – shot him a side-eye and suggested he relieve himself right there.
“I was like, ‘I don’t know about that one.’ They’re like, ‘You’re already soaking and sweating and everything. You might as well just do it,’” Williams recalled.
“Just a heads up – I didn’t do it,” he clarified.
Williams has rarely taken a break since, bathroom or otherwise. He became a model of stability at a time when Georgia Tech’s line depth was precariously thin. Injuries took their toll. Players weren’t developed yet. A lack of continuity made for some ugly Saturdays, and Williams took his share of lumps.
His parents, Dennis Williams and Melissa Pollard, studied engineering in college at the old Southern Polytechnic State. His older sister, Jayla, preceded him at Tech and is currently wrapping up her master’s degree. Engineering, Williams says, “does run in our family. Everybody either likes building things or coding.” But reprogramming and rebuilding the Yellow Jackets’ offensive line had started to feel like a Sisyphean task.
Even for the perpetually peppy Williams, the doubt started to creep in.
“Those thoughts definitely crossed my mind,” he admitted. “There was frustration there. But when you get the ball rolling on the offensive side, that frustration will leave quick.”
It took longer than anticipated, but the breakthroughs finally came. Aside from Key, no one has been around for the offensive line’s transformation longer than Williams has. In 2022, Georgia Tech ranked 91st in the nation in yards per carry. In 2023, they finished ninth. In 2022, the Jackets ranked 113th in the nation in sacks allowed (39). This year, they’re tied for second (5). The number hasn’t come from smoke and mirrors either: The Jackets have faced four of the top 20 teams nationally in total sacks.
(If not smoke and mirrors, it may come from “sandpapering,” a pet phrase of offensive line coach Geep Wade that Williams gleefully drops into his press conferences. It refers to the mentality of roughing up opposing defenders.)
“That’s definitely a great feeling,” Williams said of the offensive line’s turnaround. “Just building relationships with the guys, doing a lot of events together, that really tightened our bond.”
“We always get on J-Will because we expect more out of him every day. It’s kind of unfair to him at times, but those are good expectations for him. He’s had a great career,” Wade added.
The individual accolades have rolled in as well. Williams finished the 2023 season earning honorable mention all-ACC honors. He graduated with his business administration degree in May. Earlier this month, he took home his first career ACC Offensive Lineman of the Week award for his part in Georgia Tech’s 28-23 win over No. 4 Miami. On Tuesday, he was voted one of Tech’s five permanent team captains for the 2024 season.
