FAYETTEVILLE — Former Arkansas linebacker Rickey Williams and his wife, Keli, used to continually hear strange noises in their home late into the night.
One evening, the puzzled parents mutually decided to roll out of bed and investigate for themselves. They initially believed there may be a small animal loose and running through the house.
It would have explained the odd and repetitive swooshing sound. But what they discovered was perhaps more jaw-dropping.
The culprit was their son, Zach Williams, then an ambitious nine-month-old.
“We watched him climb out of his crib, flip over backward, land on his feet, run around the house, run back to his crib and climb back in and go to sleep,” Rickey Williams told WholeHogSports. “I knew he was an athlete when he was about eight-and-a-half months old because he never crawled. He just stood up and started walking.
“Then, at nine months old, I really knew he was an athlete.”
Zach Williams began playing tackle football when he was 7, but flag football was his soft introduction to the game. It took a while for him to grasp the real thing, according to his father.
He didn’t quite understand the concept of tackling at first. Rickey Williams, an All-Southwest Conference performer for the Razorbacks, vividly recalls screaming reminders to his son from the sideline to bring down the ball carrier.
Rickey Williams laughs about those moments now. He watched his son star at Joe T. Robinson High School in Little Rock and flourish into a four-star prospect who totaled more than 150 tackles and 28 sacks in his final two prep seasons.
Zach Williams signs a letter of intent to play football at Arkansas while his father, former Razorback linebacker Rickey Williams, watches during a ceremony Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2018, in Little Rock.
Zach Williams, who opted to follow in his father’s footsteps during the recruiting process, knows good and well what to do these days, too, and how to do it well. The sophomore’s play against two top-20 opponents has been one of the early stories for an improved Arkansas defense.
“He’s not a loafing-type kid,” Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman said Wednesday. “He is going to give you effort. And, to me, he’s just a hard-working kid who can run. He’s working his way up the depth chart.
“I’m just very, very proud of him.”
Just how active has Zach Williams been in Arkansas’ first two games? He is fourth on the team in total tackles with 13, including seven against No. 4 Georgia. He also recorded his first career sack in the season-opening loss.
In nine games in 2019, he finished with 12 tackles.
Rickey Williams is proud of the way his son has performed to this point in the season. The uptick in production is a result of rigorous offseason training at home that put 20 pounds on his frame and a relentless mentality akin to that of his father in the 1980s.
“He does not stop, and that’s how he’s able to make these tackles, because he’s going to the ball every play,” Rickey Williams said. “He’s not the biggest, he’s not the strongest, he may be faster than some of them, but he never stops. That’s the biggest trait he brings.
“That was me, too, when I played. I never stopped. Maybe that was genetically transferred,” he joked. “I don’t know. His mother is that way, too, so he probably got it from both of us.”
Zach Williams’ freshman season can best be described as a developmental year, and in more ways than one. Not only was he undersized for an SEC defensive lineman at 225 pounds, he struggled for the first time being away from Little Rock for an extended period of time.
He had always been a home body, someone who did not even enjoy staying overnight at friends’ homes growing up. Zach Williams was homesick shortly after arriving at Arkansas and reached a point early on in which he did not want to stick around.
He told his parents he wanted to return to central Arkansas and enroll at Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock.
“I laughed, and I told him it’s not an option. Suck it up,” Rickey Williams said. “I laughed. Me and my wife, we laughed. Like, grow up. That’s exactly what he did.
“He was probably homesick for a couple of weeks then he got over it.”
Entering Saturday’s game at No. 13 Auburn, Zach Williams is listed as a potential starter at the JACK position. He earned his first starting nod in the win at Mississippi State.
Pittman has said on more than one occasion that the sophomore has earned more playing time regardless of whether Dorian Gerald or another defensive lineman was injured or available. The first-year head coach said Zach Williams is a lunch-pail type of player.
“He doesn’t say much. He goes to work,” Pittman added. “You ask him to do something, he goes and does it. He chases the ball and tries to do his assignment as best he can.”
The Williams family motto is simple: If our son is traveling to games, we’re traveling, too. Rickey Williams loves watching his son produce.
But what he enjoys most is the post-game chat and listening to his son critique his own performance, even after a strong showing.
“He is never happy with his play,” Rickey Williams said. “He always feels like he can play better, and that to me is excellent. He realizes there is room for growth. That’s something we’ve instilled in him his whole life because, yeah, he did a good job, but there’s always somebody out there that’s going to be better.
“You have to keep working hard to keep what you have and hopefully reach the next level.”