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Antonio Williams’ quiet confidence shines through for Clemson in rookie season

— An hour before Dutch Fork High School kicked off with T.L. Hanna in the 2020 South Carolina state title game, one side of the Benedict College bleachers was more alive than the other.

T.L. Hanna’s fans came early, and they cheered every time a Dutch Fork receiver dropped a pass in warmups. Jason Barnes, who was the receivers coach at Dutch Fork, recalls their enthusiasm only because of what it inspired Antonio Williams to say.

“Coach, they’re just happy to be here,” Williams said. “We’re about to kill them.”

Barnes, a former receiver at South Carolina, now an offensive analyst at Coastal Carolina, bursts out laughing as soon as he repeats that line. One, because it’s ‘Tonio, and ‘Tonio rarely says anything.

And, two, the words he spoke in that moment perfectly illustrate the quiet confidence of a 5-foot-11, 190-pound “scrub,” as Barnes will jokingly call him, who found his way to Clemson and now leads the Tigers in receiving as a true freshman.

In personality, Williams can be as unassuming and hard to read as his route-running. But his critiques are as sharp as his cuts on an out route.

He is so chilled out, and football is such a game to him — not much more — the taunts of the T.L. Hanna contingent seemed a little over the top to him. On the Dutch Fork side, they were more subdued, because they had witnessed four straight titles. They expected to win, just like Williams.