Jeremiah Williams is a 6-foot-2, 320-pound defensive tackle who also plays fullback for Tustin’s football team.
Read more Saddleback Valley Unified students are back to school and ready to learn
He is ferocious in the hand-to-hand combat of interior line play. And when he is coming out of Tustin’s backfield, blocking for a ball-carrying teammate or running with the ball himself, he probably makes players on the other team question their decision to play football.
After a game? Off of the field?
“Oh, he’s a big softie,” said Tustin head coach Anthony Lopez.
A big softie who is known for his locker room impersonations of Lopez.
Lopez is at least a couple of inches shy of 6 feet. So when Lopez gets fired up, when the coach is yelling with some colorful words in the mix, Williams gets a bit of a tickle out of that.
“‘You guys gotta get it going!’” Williams offered, in a high-pitched growl, as a quick example. “I talked to his pops the other day, and now I know where he gets it from.”
Lopez likes it.
“That gets all the kids going,” Lopez said. “I’ll stick my head around the corner to catch it, and they’re all smiling.
“Jeremiah’s a funny kid to be around. He’s a goofball for sure, but when it comes to football you don’t want to be lined up against him.”
Williams is No. 3 in the Register’s Hot 150 list of Orange County’s top football players. He was named Delta League MVP last season after he had a team-leading 24 tackles for loss and rushed for seven touchdowns.
He is a powerful defensive tackle, a double-team assignment on every snap. Williams is also Michael Jackson-quick on his feet.
With his size, grit and nimble moves, every college football program that thought it had a chance to get Williams went after him.
Williams made many college visits. He chose BYU.
“When I visited their campus, there was this aura at BYU,” he said. “I felt loved and wanted.”
Football not only is going to pay for his college education, the sport also makes it OK for him to have a dual personality.
“I can come to the field and be a different person, then come off of the field as a whole different person again,” Williams said. “If I’m angry, I can take that out on the field. Hitting somebody is fun and I honestly love the contact.”
Williams played running back in his earliest days of football. He played rugby, too, until he got to high school. It looks like he might be carrying the football at BYU, too.
In a conversation with BYU head coach Kilani Sitake, Williams tried to convince the coach to let him continue to play running back.
Read more Charter expanding Spectrum into Southern California after Cox acquisition
“And he said, ‘Oh, we’re already planning on that,’” Williams said.
But first comes Williams’ senior season, which begins with a great opening-week matchup at San Clemente on Friday. San Clemente is ranked No. 7 and Tustin is No. 8 in the Register’s Orange County preseason Top 25.
Along for the ride will be Williams’ 4-year-old brother Tua.
“Everything you see me doing, he’s doing it,” Williams said. “When I’m stretching, he’s stretching with me. He’s my little road dog.”
The big guy has a big heart.
NOTES
• Canyon and Fullerton officially changed their nicknames for this school year in accordance with the California Racial Mascots Act of 2024. Canyon, formerly Comanches, is now the Cobras. Fullerton, formerly Indians, is the Red Hawks. …
• Crean Lutheran’s football team was 1-9 in 2022. Crean begins the 2026 season at No. 6 in the Orange County preseason Top 25 poll. …
• For the first time in 57 years, an Edison vs. Fountain Valley football game will not be played this season. Edison has won the “Battle for the Bell” game for 21 years in a row including a 34-7 win last year. Maybe the rivalry will resume some day. …
• Santa Margarita’s girls volleyball team advanced to the semifinals of the Ann Kang Invitational tournament in Hawaii last week. Sierra Canyon, last season’s CIF-SS Division 1 champion, won the tournament championship by beating host school Iolani in the finals. …
• Mater Dei’s girls volleyball team won the Elite Varsity division championship of the preseason Queen’s Court tournament at Foothill High this month. …
• Gavin Honore was an All-Trinity League receiver at Mater Dei last football season. He transferred to Bishop Gorman of Las Vegas in January, but this week he reenrolled at Mater Dei. He did not play in a football game for Bishop Gorman, so perhaps he can be eligible for this season at Mater Dei. As of Thursday morning there was no information about his status on the CIF Southern Section website. …
• The notable boys basketball transfers include: Ender Berg, a 6-11 senior returning to Mater Dei after some time at Legacy Christian; Ryan Doane, a 6-9 junior, has transfered to Mater Dei after being All-Orange County second team season at JSerra; senior guard Earl Bryson transferred to Crean Lutheran after being All-County second-team at JSerra; Ian Awoleye, a 6-7 junior wing has tranferred from Corona Centennial to Canyon; and Hunter Caplan, an All-County second-team guard at Crean Lutheran last season is now at Southern California Academy. …
• Mater Dei girls basketball has added two high-profile transfers: Addison Archer and Tatianna Griffin. Archer is a 5-9 guard who scored 27 points a game last season for Rancho Christian in Temecula. Griffin is a junior forward who spent last season at Ontario Christian. She has been rated as the No. 1 recruit for the girls basketball class of 2028. …
• Eric Borba has returned to Orange County baseball as coach at Servite. He stepped down as the coach at Orange Lutheran after 16 years and winning a CIF Southern California Regional championship in 2024. He took a year off to, among other endeavors, watch his son Casey play at the University of Texas. …
• For the month of July, the CIF-SS office processed 304 transfer eligibility requests, a decrease of 10 percent from July of 2025 (336 requests). August 2026 is going to be a busier month.
Read more Motorcyclist killed in suspected DUI crash in Lake Forest, driver arrested