When Jonah Williams was about 12, he began building a weight room in his parents basement in suburban Atlanta. Dewayne Dedmon Jersey .The tall preteen was all elbows and kneecaps back then. He thought he was too skinny, and rather than wait for nature to run its course, he decided to escalate the process.Katherine, his mother, said he would eat and eat and eat. And before long, her quiet, introspective son had morphed into someone different. He was born big -- just shy of 11 pounds and 22 inches long -- but suddenly he was growing in leaps and bounds into the 6-foot-5, 290-pound behemoth hed become.Hed always had an intensity about him, but Katherine started to sense an aggression in him when he played sports. Seeing him defend the net as a fullback in soccer, guard the rim as a center in basketball or shield the quarterback at offensive tackle in football, she began to put two and two together.Put him on [the] athletic field and it comes out: the protection, she said.Alabama fans have seen it during every one of the Crimson Tides 13 games this season: Williams protecting fellow freshman Jalen Hurts. Hurts has gotten all the acclaim as a true freshman QB starting on the No. 1-ranked team in college football, but Williams has been arguably the more consistent player. It feels as if every week the right tackle has been part of the staffs players of the week. Hes already a member of the SEC All-Freshman Team and is a mortal lock to become a consensus freshman All-American.But neither Williams, his mother nor his former high school coach are shocked that he has been able to have this much success so soon. When asked whether they were even a little bit surprised, their response inevitably began with, No, but ...If Jonah sets a goal, Katherine said, its hard to deter him from that.Said Williams: Ive always wanted to compete and just work to earn everything.That competitiveness, Katherine said, is innate. But it was also nurtured by a mother who played tennis and a father who swam and played offensive line in high school. She went to school at Auburn and he at Georgia, so college football has always been a part of the familys life.A job opportunity led the family to move from Atlanta to California after Williams freshman year of high school, and he settled in at Folsom High after a semester at another local high school.When Folsom football coach Kris Richardson first laid eyes on Williams, he was stunned.You could see right away he had the physical tools: quick feet, an explosive lower body, a freak in the weight room, Richardson said. But he was really raw and didnt have a lot of technique. ... His idea of football was to grab and kick and throw people to the ground. Im like, Jonah, for one, these are your own teammates. Lets not throw our own guys to the ground all the time. And two, when you throw kids thats not really blocking.Even if he didnt want to become a technician, Richardson said Williams would have been fine living off his natural ability. In fact, before his first game on varsity, Cal was so impressed that it offered him a scholarship on the spot.But Williams did want to learn the finer points of playing the position. By Saturday morning, hed already be done watching the game tape from the night before and Richardson would wake to a dozen or so text messages from his star left tackle.On play 22, I took my step wrong, Williams would write, according to Richardson. On play 25, my hands werent inside.Richardson would reply, and Williams would inevitably be in the weight room working out. Richardson held him back as best he could, but he still benched more than 500 pounds and squatted more than 600.Very serious. Very mature, Richardson said of Williams. His work ethic is off the charts. Thats just who he is as a person.During Williams junior season, he would protect the blindside of future Washington quarterback Jake Browning. Folsom won the state title that year and Williams wound up with scholarship offers from every school that saw him play, Richardson said.If you want to entertain yourself, pull up his high school highlight tape, Richardson said. He was killing kids. It was not fair.He even played defensive line on occasion and dominated there, too.Hes going to go down as one of Sacramentos all-time greatest, said Richardson, who has been head coach at Folsom for 12 years and was an assistant there for nearly a decade before that.But the best thing about Williams, Richardson said, was how he handled the recruiting process. He had one tweet about it, and it was the one where he announced his commitment to Alabama. And before he sent that out, he called every head coach who offered him a scholarship to personally relay his decision.Williams graduated early and enrolled at Alabama in January.I came in and found a place that suits me and my personality, my work ethic, Williams said.In a bit of foreshadowing, he said that, I wouldnt recommend someone come here if theyre not willing to work hard.If there was one thing players noticed about Williams right away, it was his attitude in the weight room. He didnt chafe at the shrill whistle of strength coach Scott Cochran at 6:30 a.m. Instead, he seemed to love it.He lives in there, said veteran guard Ross Pierschbacher, and it shows.Williams and Pierschabacher would become workout buddies as well as friends off the field.Pierschabacher said that hell try to watch other college football games as a fan and inevitably Williams will spoil it, yapping in his ear about, Oh, they ran this blitz and that stunt and they should have done this.Its like watching film next to [offensive line coach Brent Key], Pierschabacher said. I just want to relax a little bit.He added: I just think thats how hes built and thats whats making him so successful; hes just got that great football mind.Senior defensive tackle Jonathan Allen marvels at Williams technique and said that he plays beyond his age.Junior defensive end DaShawn Hand said there are times when he forgets that hes a freshman, too.That dude is going to be a monster, Hand said. Just wait. Youll see.According to Pro Football Focus, Williams graded higher than Alabamas junior left tackle?Cam Robinson, a player many expect to be taken in the first round of next years draftThe future finance major isnt done yet. On Dec. 31, Williams will introduce himself to an even larger audience when No. 1-ranked Alabama plays in the College Football Playoff semifinal game at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta (3 p.m. ET, ESPN).The opponent: No. 4 Washington and Williams former teammate, Browning.Theyre good friends, Katherine said. Hes excited about it. Hes proud of Jake and his accomplishments, but at the same time this is going to be fun. This is the Pac-12 versus the SEC.Katherine said she was thankful that since Williams and Browning both play offense, there wont be any physical altercation between the friends. Not that Williams wouldnt be ready.When Katherine spoke for this story, Alabama had just ended its fall semester and players were able to go home before practice started back up. And where was Williams on his day off? At the local recreation center lifting weights.When he got home, Katherine said that her son, an avid reader, would start his next book: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.Its heady stuff for a freshman in college, but Williams isnt your typical freshman.Hes like a 28-year-old man and not an 18-year-old kid, Richardson said. Bruno Caboclo Kings Jersey . 31, the CFL club announced Monday. The team also has yet to decide on the future of Doug Berry, who began the season as a consultant to the head coach but took over the offensive co-ordinators duties in July. Iman Shumpert Jersey . MLS Commissioner Don Garber and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez also will attend the session, which was announced Monday. The league has discussed placing its next two expansion teams in Miami and Atlanta. https://www.kingslockerroom.com/Bogdan-B...Edition-Jersey/ . He said Tuesday thats a big reason why he is now the new coach of the Tennessee Titans. Whisenhunt said he hit it off quickly with Ruston Webster when interviewing for the job Friday night.England Lions 223 for 8 (Clarke 42, S Curran 40, Qadeer 3-48) beat UAE 207 (Mufti 69, Mustafa 40, Rayner 3-27, C Overton 3-29) by 16 runs ScorecardEngland Lions completed a clean sweep of their one-day series against the United Arab Emirates in Dubai thanks to the depth of their batting and the quality of their bowling and fielding.The Lions top order failed to fire for the second game in succession after they were put in on a tricky pitch, with only Joe Clarke of the top five passing 30. But they still posted a decent total of 223 for 8, the highest of a low-scoring series, thanks to handy contributions lower down the order, led by 40 for the Surrey allrounder Sam Curran, who later impressed with the ball, alongside Craig Overton and Ollie Rayner, who both took three wickets.The UAE threatened to pull off an unlikely win led by Adnan Mufti, a 31-year-old left-hander from Rawalpindi, on his debut, but Mufti was run out by Liam Livingstones powerful throw from the long-on boundary with the UAE still 16 runs short.I think it was quite good for us to be in a tight game at the end there, said Rayner. Their left-hander played really well and we had to work hard to get the win. Through the series weve had lots of different guys taking wickets with Stuart Meaker in the first game and Tom Curran in the second, and a few of us shared them out a bit today.Overton is on his fourth Lions tour even though he is still only 22, and aiming to make up for lost time after suffering injuries in each of the last two winters. Its been frustrating with the injuries the last two years, but I had a good season with Somerset and so far things have been going well, he said.Curran, returned to the team with his older brother Tom rrested following his five wickets as the Lions clinched the series on Saturday, made the first breakthrough courtesy of a low one-handed catch by Clarke, who was keeping for the first time on the tour. Wenyen Gabriel Jersey. Ben Foakes, who had worn the gloves in the previous two matches, then showed his ability in the outfield with a sharp catch at midwicket to give James Fuller his first success.Rohan Mustafa, the opener who has been UAEs best batsman all series, was leading the charge again until he launched Rayner straight down the ground and Overton intercepted just inside the boundary. With the first ball of his next over, Rayner had Mohammed Usman, another left-hander, lbw sweeping, and when Overton claimed a deserved wicket in a probing opening burst of 4-2-2-1, UAE had slumped from 71 for 2 to 81 for 5.Rayner claimed a sharp return catch for his third wicket, and Tom Alsop snapped up Saqlain Haider at point to give Fuller his second. Then Overton returned to collect a couple more, although the Lions were relieved when Livingstone ended the last-wicket resistance.Livingstone had also made an impression with the bat, hitting two sixes in a fourth-wicket stand of 65 in 14 overs with Clarke. But they fell in quick succession to leave the Lions on 115 for 5, and they were indebted to Curran, the youngest member of the squad, for showing maturity as well as ability in partnerships of 45 with Foakes and 34 with Fuller.The Lions must now switch quickly to red-ball mode, with practice at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday before a four-day match against Afghanistan. ' ' '