Recruiting impact: Travis Williams has to modernize Miami’s LBs. He has the track record
Travis Williams has faith in his current crop of linebackers. It’s one of the central tenets of his coaching philosophy: Build up your players’ confidence and they will believe they can become a star. On his first day meeting with the Miami Hurricanes’ linebackers, the new position coach said he believed there was an all-Atlantic Coast Conference player in the room.
Maybe it will be Bradley Jennings Jr. or Waynmon Steed — the two veterans in the group. Maybe Sam Brooks Jr., who has had two strong seasons in Coral Gambles, or Corey Flagg Jr. coming off an impressive freshman season.
None of those four were blue-chip recruits, though. Williams might get the most out of his current players and fix a disappointing position group, but recapturing the glory of “Linebacker U,” as Williams proclaimed Miami, will have to happen on the recruiting trail, too.
“There’s a ton of talent right in our footprint,” the inside linebackers coach said Wednesday, “so we definitely have to take advantage of that and really attack all the student-athletes in this area that we think can come help us win championships.”
Williams, who officially replaced Blake Baker last Monday after the former inside linebackers coach left for the LSU Tigers, has maybe the tallest task of any of the Hurricanes’ new defensive coaches. In the regular-season finale last year, Miami gave up a record 554 rushing yards to the North Carolina Tar Heels. The Hurricanes are now more than a year removed from former linebackers Shaquille Quarterman and Michael Pinckney playing their final games, and the long-term solution to replacing those four-year starters is still unknown.
With linebacker Zach McCloud moving to defensive line, Jennings, Steed, Brooks and Flagg will all compete for starting jobs, along with more unproven linebackers such as Avery Huff and Tirek Austin-Cave. Only Huff is a former four-star recruit, according to the 247Sports.com composite rankings. Williams will have to bolster Miami’s recruiting efforts and modernize the position, and he has proven capable of doing both.
It has been a little more than a week since Williams has taken over, and he has already reached out to South Florida’s top two linebackers in the Class of 2022, and both offer a more modern skill set.
Miami Central’s Wesley Bissainthe is the top-ranked linebacker in Florida, and the Hurricanes are one of the top contenders for the four-star outside linebacker. The 6-foot-1, 195-pound junior is a sideline-to-sideline playmaker who had 45 tackles, 21 tackles and seven sacks last year. Even on a defense with five-star outside linebacker Terrence Lewis, Bissainthe managed to stand out as Central’s top defensive performer.
Travious Lathan isn’t quite as high-profile a prospect as Bissainthe, but he’s a truly modern linebacker. The four-star outside linebacker primarily played wide receiver and strong safety last year at Miami Gulliver Prep and had 14 catches for 239 yards and two touchdowns, plus 20 tackles in just six games. The 6-2, 202-pound junior was one of the first players Williams reached out to, which is a sign he values the Lathan’s athleticism.
“He said he’s not going to let me leave Miami,” said Lathan, who said he talked to Williams on the first day the position coach got the job. “He’s a pretty funny dude and he’s always going to come hyped, always going to be turned [up] when game time comes.”
When coach Manny Diaz was linebackers coach and responsible for recruiting the position, he prioritized downhill playmakers, and Baker mostly kept the same priorities. It made for massive tackle-for-loss totals, but often left the Hurricanes susceptible in the intermediate passing game and to outside runs.
“You need to find a guy that has the skill set you’re looking for, that’s explosive, who has the suddenness you’re looking for,” Williams said, “can bend, has play strength, can run sideline to sideline and also has a football IQ.”
Williams has a track record of winning recruiting battles, unlike Baker, who came to the Hurricanes after working for the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs.
Williams, who was an all-SEC linebacker for the Auburn Tigers in 2004 and played one season for the Atlanta Falcons, worked as an assistant coach at his alma mater from 2016 to 2020 before new coach Bryan Harsin opted not to retain him after Auburn hired him late last year.
In just five seasons, Williams was the primary recruiter for seven blue-chip recruits — including five-star outside linebacker Owen Pappoe — and the secondary recruiter for six more, according to 247Sports. While Auburn dispatched him to recruit all manner of positions across the South, he did help land seven blue-chip linebackers. This year, he will likely get his first player drafted as linebacker K.J. Britt projects as a mid-round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.
Almost all the players Williams signed in his five years at Auburn hailed from either Georgia or Alabama, with one exception: Octavius Brothers, a three-star outside linebacker from Rockledge. He knows his personal recruiting footprint now needs to expand further south.
“In the South period, it’s all about relationships and connections, and it’s about also building those relationships as you go, so if we just use that I think we’ll be fine,” Williams said, “but obviously it’s loaded down here. That’s why so many schools come down here, and we’re trying our best to keep them down here with us.”
This story was originally published February 8, 2021 at 4:40 PM.
