After three years as an Ohio State safety, Kourt Williams is moving to linebacker ahead of his fourth season as a Buckeye.
It’s a move that the 6-foot-1, 228-pound fourth-year Buckeye decided to make because he believes will give him a better chance of eventually playing in the NFL.
“It was an idea that I brought to the coaches. I thought about it, prayed about it for a while. Just thinking about the next level, I think it’ll be a good move for me,” Williams said after his first practice as an Ohio State linebacker on Thursday.
While Williams said he didn’t start thinking about moving to linebacker until recently, Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles has been weighing that possibility since he arrived in Columbus last year. Knowles, who doubles as the Buckeyes’ linebackers coach, believes Williams’ new position will better fit his skill set.
“He's a guy we always felt would be better off closer to the line of scrimmage. So we've debated that move for a while,” Knowles said. “He's kind of moved back and forth. We just thought it was the right time to move him down fully.
“He'll still play some Sam linebacker in our 4-3. But Kourt is a first-class young man. It's great to have him at linebacker.”
Thanks to injuries, Williams hasn’t played much at any position in his first three years as a Buckeye. He missed his entire true freshman season with a torn ACL. As a redshirt freshman, Williams showed potential as a backup safety, finishing the 2021 campaign by playing a career-high 47 defensive snaps in the Rose Bowl. Torn labrums in both of his shoulders last year, however, limited him to just 42 defensive snaps in Ohio State’s first six games of the year before he underwent season-ending surgery.
Having undergone two surgeries on his right shoulder and another on his left, Williams said he still doesn’t quite feel 100 percent. But he refused to let his rotten injury luck bring his football career to an end.
“I mean, our culture’s fight,” Williams said, referencing Ryan Day’s motto for the program. “I feel like I would be a phony if I quit. That’s just not who I am.
“It’s bigger than myself. I’m doing it for my family. I’m doing it for the glory of God. And I'm gonna ride this thing ‘til the wheels fall off.”
Had Williams remained at safety, he was unlikely to play a substantial role in Ohio State’s secondary this season. Returning starter Lathan Ransom occupies the strong safety spot that would have been Williams’ best fit in the secondary, and Ja’Had Carter, Sonny Styles, Cameron Martinez and Josh Proctor are all candidates to play at the other two safety spots.
With Steele Chambers and Tommy Eichenberg returning as the starting linebackers and C.J. Hicks and Cody Simon set to be their top backups, Williams’ path to playing time at linebacker this season isn’t any more straightforward. But with three years of collegiate eligibility remaining thanks to the extra year of eligibility all players received in 2020, Williams believes moving to linebacker now is the best move for his long-term future.
“It’s more just about I’m just trying to learn right now. That's my main objective is learn the position,” Williams said.
“I feel like I would be a phony if I quit. That’s just not who I am.”– Kourt Williams on continuing to play football despite injuries
Williams’ best chance of earning playing time this season would likely be as a Sam linebacker in situations where the Buckeyes want to have three linebackers on the field without sacrificing too much coverage ability. However, that role is seemingly tailor-made for Styles. Williams said he will be primarily practicing at Will linebacker, where he’s unlikely to be any higher than third on this year’s depth chart behind Chambers and Hicks, though he could be an option to add more coverage ability at linebacker in third-down passing situations – a role he actually played at St. John Bosco High School.
So far, Williams says the transition from safety to linebacker hasn’t felt like a difficult one. He already has the size of a linebacker – he’s only four pounds lighter than Chambers and two pounds lighter than Hicks – and he knows his coverage ability will be an asset at LB. He acknowledges he has to get better at playing the run as a linebacker, but it’s not as if he has to learn a new defensive scheme.
“I know the system. I know the defense. So it's actually not that hard of a transition,” Williams said. “It's just about getting the little things like reading linemen, pulls, all that stuff that I’m not really used to. I’ve gotta get used to again.”
Chambers, who knows what it’s like to make a mid-career position switch after starting his Ohio State career at running back, says Williams is proving to be a quick study at linebacker.
“He’s been here for like two days and he already knows a lot of it,” Chambers said. “I mean, you saw us going split-field today, so he was taking a lot of reps. And from what I heard, he was on the other field, but he was doing really well just being able to get a grasp of a decent amount of plays that we put into this. I mean, that's fantastic. That's just a testament to who he is.”
