UC LT John Williams on His Growth as First-Year Starter, Running Success, And More
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00:00 You see left tackle John Williams joining me Russ Heltman, your All-Bear
00:04 Couch reporter here on Talking Cats with Russ Heltman. So John, I mean you've had
00:08 your two best career games in my eyes over the past couple weeks. The offense
00:13 is motoring on the ground. For you individually, what has the growth been
00:18 like? What has the growth period been like for you this year? Has it been, have
00:22 you felt like it's been a struggle at times and you're starting to get even to
00:25 that point where you want to be? How does that all look right now as we get into
00:28 the final couple weeks of the season? I don't know if I'd say that it was a
00:32 struggle but it's definitely just been a grind. Just trying to get better every
00:35 day that we come out here and especially taking game reps and learning based off
00:40 game reps because everything's gonna happen at full speed obviously. So that's
00:43 really your best time to learn is in the game. So yeah. Has that been kind of an adjustment in
00:47 terms of you've always kind of had to learn off practice reps and then
00:51 adjusting to learning off game reps? Yeah I think it's been, I think it's actually
00:54 made it a little bit easier to start, keep developing and start learning more.
00:58 Just because I get to understand how I prefer to play in the game and how I
01:03 prefer to get things done. So I think yeah, I think it's actually been very
01:06 helpful. You guys have, knock on wood, I don't know how many you would that knock on right now, but
01:10 have stayed very healthy as an offensive line this season. What does that give you
01:14 in terms of the continuity and the run blocking and especially in the pass
01:18 blocking in recent weeks? It's really starting to come together. Is that kind
01:21 of the most important part of line chemistry is just being able to stay
01:24 with the same guys? Yeah, yeah it's good that we've been, we've been able to gel a
01:27 lot with the first five and just build good relationships and good chemistry.
01:32 Just that we trust each other and we know what what we have to do basically.
01:35 Your first year here as a starter and you have a couple years to go, you
01:40 could still come back and keep contributing to this team. How does it
01:43 feel to know that like you're getting better, you're improving, the
01:47 production is improving along with your growth? What does that look
01:50 like for you in terms of individually? Individually it feels really good to
01:53 keep developing myself, but also it feels good to finally be able to
01:59 contribute to the team and to the program. I feel like obviously this year
02:02 hasn't gone how we expected it to, but I think that this is going to be a good
02:06 foundation for our program to see who we really are and how we bounce back from
02:11 the things that happen to us. So I'm proud to be part of that foundation.
02:15 You see left tackle John Williams join us here on Talking Cats with Russ
02:18 Altman. So John, in terms of your game individually, what do you feel like
02:22 you're trying to kind of sharpen the most over these final couple weeks and
02:27 then heading into the offseason, what are you trying to work on the most to keep
02:31 stacking growth? I think a lot of it's going to be my pass blocking,
02:34 majority pass blocking. I think I'm pretty good in the run, but I think I
02:38 still need to keep developing and pass. What's the most difficult aspect of the
02:43 pass blocking for you? Just winning one-on-one reps really. There's
02:48 obviously slides and double teams, but at the end of the day you have to win your
02:52 one-on-one reps and that's what we want to do. That's what we need to do to win.
02:56 You look at the guys alongside you and the guy right next to you, D'Artagnan
03:00 Tinsley, obviously stayed healthy just like you have. What's that relationship
03:04 look like and what is kind of the pass off language kind of communication
03:09 look like right now compared to game one, game two? I mean that's my dog.
03:14 We say all the time, there's a lot of times we really don't have to say
03:18 anything out there. We kind of just know what each other, what we're supposed to
03:22 do and what each other is going to do, but it's definitely improved a lot since
03:26 spring ball. It just keeps getting better, keeps getting stronger.
03:29 One more question here for John Williams. Your coach Nick Cardwell, I mean I
03:33 would say he's done one of the best jobs of any assistant on this team getting
03:37 you guys to the point where you're at in year one of a new system. Has there been
03:41 any key communication skill that he's shown or any key aspect of the way he's
03:46 implemented this system to allow you guys to have so much success rushing the
03:49 ball so far this year? I think he teaches it very well. I think that the way that he
03:54 covers the basics and the fundamentals is very, it's very good. It's just very
03:58 thorough and we know exactly what we need to do, but he's also just a perfect fit
04:02 for the culture of Cincinnati and I think that we appreciate that and we
04:06 respect that, which is why we gel so well with him and why we learn so well from him.
04:10 UC left tackle John Williams. Thanks, John.