It initially took some convincing to get Avantae Williams down to Coral Gables in January for his official visit with the Miami Hurricanes.
The Florida Gators were established as the frontrunner in the four-star safety’s recruitment heading into National Signing Day, and Williams wasn’t sure he needed to take all his visits, even though he had a strong, long-lasting relationship with Miami’s defensive coaching staff.
Steve Allen tried to help his star through the thought process. Williams was once upon a time the first member of the Hurricanes’ Class of 2020 and the DeLand coach reminded him of it.
“He was trying to discern where to go on the visits, and he wasn’t going to take all his visits, and initially he wasn’t going to go to Miami, and I just kind of reminded him of, In life we do things with loyalty,” Allen said after Williams surprisingly signed a national letter of intent with the Hurricanes last Wednesday. “I said, ‘Miami’s been in here on this thing the whole time and at the very least the right thing to do is to take the visit.’”
It was the reminder Williams needed to thrust the Hurricanes back into the thick of his recruitment. Less than 24 hours before he sent his letter of intent to the Hurricanes, Williams decided he would spurn Florida and head south to Miami. It was a decision which shocked the recruiting world and even his community in Volusia County.
There’s a history of Bulldogs going to play for the Gators. Wide receiver Dionte Marks signed with Florida out of DeLand in the Class of 2019. Former running back Mike Gillislee and former defensive back De’Ante Saunders both played for the Gators after standout careers for the Bulldogs. The assumption was Williams would be the next in the lineage.
The general consensus,” Allen said, “was he was going to UF.”
Williams told Allen of his decision on the morning of the defensive back’s announcement. When he feigned toward the Florida hat, then grabbed the Hurricanes one inside the gymnasium at DeLand High School, the noise from the crowd wasn’t uninterrupted cheering. Instead, it was a quick gasp of excitement from a surprised audience.
The Gators are essentially the hometown team in Central Florida and Allen said he thinks the slightly longer trip to South Florida actually helped Miami in the end. He’ll be close enough for his family to come down and watch him play at Hard Rock Stadium, and he’s far enough to create a separation from his life at home.
“Geography, proximity — those things matter. It’s going to be hard for anybody to see him out there,” Allen said. “At the end of the day, I think that’s far enough away at Miami where he’s not going to have people from DeLand dragging down there all the time, but he can get his family down and he wants to have them around, and he’s not going to be running back to DeLand all the time. I think that had a little something to do with it. It’s in-state, it’s far away, but it’s close enough.”
The Hurricanes’ persistence on the recruiting trail paid off over and over in the 2020 recruiting class. Running backs coach Eric Hickson’s decision to continue recruiting Jaylan Knighton even when the four-star running back was orally committed to the Florida State Seminoles helped Miami land the Deerfield Beach star. The same was true with four-star defensive end Chantz Williams, whom the Hurricanes continued to recruit even when he didn’t put Miami in his top three. Eventually, they landed a commitment from the Orange Park Oakleaf star.
Safeties coach Ephraim Banda’s persistence with Williams helped the Hurricanes make up a massive amount of ground in the final major month of the recruiting cycle and Miami landed its top-ranked player, according to the 247Sports.com composite rankings, on the final day.
“I’ve got to give all the credit to Coach Banda, who never gave up on him, but there was just a feeling that Avantae was a Cane at heart,” coach Manny Diaz said on Signing Day. “In recruiting, you just get to know these guys. There’s something about him that he just fit in here.”
. Y’all should hear avantae interview with ivins that he just dropped. Sound like he has that cane mentality for sure
podcasts.apple.com
