Orange Park Oakleaf coach explains why UM’s new DE commit could be a ‘top-10 pick’

Orange Park Oakleaf High football coach Frank Garis has a hard time verbalizing any of the weaknesses in Chantz Williams’ game.

The elite defensive end already boasts a 6-4, 238-pound frame and can easily get even bigger. His athleticism is exceptionally rare at his size — he’s already the all-time leader in blocks for the boys’ basketball team. His production mostly matches up with his physical gifts, too.

Right now, Williams just needs to learn how to blend the technical ability with the physical gifts. If he does, Garis can’t envision him failing.

“I don’t know how to put this in a way, but he has the skill set, he has all the tools,” Garis said. “For him, his biggest thing is just knowing when to use them in what situations. When he understands when to do it, the sky’s the limit.

“He’s going to be a top-10 draft pick, easy.”

With his commitment to the Miami Hurricanes on Saturday, Williams immediately became the early prize on defense for Miami in the Class of 2020. He’s a four-star defensive end in the 247Sports.com composite rankings, the No. 90 player in the nation and the No. 13 prospect in Florida.

He has been clocked at 4.56 seconds in the 40-yard dash and 4.49 seconds in the shuttle with a 33.6-inch vertical leap. The senior has an 80-inch wingspan with 10-inch hands. He’s the prototype the Hurricanes look for in their top edge rushers on the weak side of the defense.

It’s why Miami has spent so long recruiting Williams. The Hurricanes were one of the front-runners for Williams when he was an underclassman, although he left Miami out of a top three he announced in May. The Hurricanes had just watched Jess Simpson head to the NFL and had to replace him with Todd Stroud as defensive line coach.

Williams didn’t have a significant relationship with the new position coach, so he narrowed his choices to the Florida Gators, Georgia Bulldogs and LSU Tigers.

A month later, four-star tackle Jalen Rivers, one of Williams’ best friends and a teammate with the Knights, committed to Miami. A few weeks more weeks passed and Williams said the Hurricanes had re-entered the mix.

“There was a new position coach and there wasn’t much of a connection there and then watching them build that connection, it was a situation where Miami came back really, really quickly,” Garis said. “The energy you feel around the program right now is very positive.”

Stroud made him the same sort of priority previous coaches had, and the Hurricanes swooped in to land another blue-chip prospect from the Jacksonville metropolitan area.

“If you look at him, you’d say he’s 210 pounds and he gets on a scale and he’s 240. He holds bulk so well you can’t really tell,” Garis said. “He’s the single greatest athlete I’ve ever been around when it comes to explosion and natural strength. How long his arms and his limbs are, to have that functional strength is off the charts. He’s a freak athletically.”

Before he took over as Oakleaf’s coach before last season, Garis was the coach at Ponte Vedra, and he got to coach against the Knights when Williams and Rivers were freshmen. Rivers was already a starting tackle, but Williams was just a rotational contributor, still adding the size he would need to become one of the best ends in the country.

He still remembers a conversation he had with his staff about the freshman wearing No. 33.

“Our coaches had a conversation after the game, just like, ‘Hey, good thing they didn’t play that 33 kid every play or I don’t know what we would’ve done,’ ” Garis said.

Maturity has only improved his performance.

As a junior, Williams recorded 22 tackles for loss, nine sacks and two forced fumbles for Oakleaf. More importantly, he was the defense’s vocal leader, calling out formations and plays from his spot on the line. It’s something even more easily visible on the basketball court, where Williams anchors the Knights’ defense as a center and also sometimes runs the offense.

Williams, who wants to major in the School of Communication, fits the profile of what coach Manny Diaz has proven he’s looking for this summer.

“I don’t really know how to explain this other than he’s literally the most gifted kid I’ve ever been around, and it’s not just athletically. He’s extremely intelligent, he’s very smart, he’s extremely sociable, has great communication skills,” Garis said. “He’s locked in on what’s going on.”

This story was originally published July 25, 2019 at 3:30 PM.