Williams to have knee surgery, is lost for season

Published 2:02 pm Tuesday, December 1, 2020

MOULTRIE — Col-quitt County coach Justin Rogers acknowledged this week that senior quarterback Xavier Williams will undergo knee surgery, ending his short, but effective, career with the Packers.

Williams, who moved with his family to Colquitt County earlier this year, was leading the team in passing and rushing when he crumpled near the sideline while running the football on the first offensive snap against Tift County on Nov. 13.

He did not return to the game as backup Zane Touchton took over and led the 41-0 victory over the Blue Devils that capped the Packers quarantine-shortened 7-0 regular season.

Rogers said the surgery will repair an ACL tear.

Williams had carried the football 51 times for 424 yards, an average of 8.3 yards a carry, and scored five touchdowns.

He also had completed 73-of-188 passes for 1,085 yards and 14 touchdowns.

Rogers lamented the early end of Williams’s lone season with the Packers, noting the development as a quarterback he had made and the leadership he had shown.

Williams has already accepted a scholarship offer from UNC-Charlotte and was expected to leave Colquitt County and enroll there in January to begin his collegiate career.

As a junior at Ola High School in McDonough last season, Williams was the backup up to starter Hunter Kautz, who signed to play at Berry College.

He threw just five passes, completing two for 48 yards and one touchdown.

But last summer his father, who works with the National Football League’s flag football initiative, took a job in Moultrie.

The younger Williams’s already late start with the program was further hindered by shutdowns caused by the spread of coronavirus.

He was unable to take part in the traditional spring workouts and 7-on-7 summer competitions used to hone quarterbacks’ skills.

He and Touchton were locked in a keen battle to replace Jaycee Harden when Rogers announced that the 6-foot-2, 205-pound Williams would start the season-opener against Banneker.

His presence was felt immediately when he completed 12-of-22 passes for 221 yards and three touchdowns in the 51-0 victory over Banneker.

In fact, his first pass as a Packer went 37 yards for  a touchdown to Baby D Wheeler.

In the victory over the Rush Propst-led Valdosta Wildcats the next week, his 62-yard third-quarter touchdown pass to Lemeke Brockington gave Colquitt a 14-10 lead in a game the Packers went on to win 24-10.

Williams threw four touchdown passes each of the next two weeks in road victories over Dothan and Northside-Warner Robins.

He led the Packers to a  Region 1-7A-opening win over Camden County and then, in what proved to be his final full game, threw a touchdown pass to Wheeler and scored on a 10-yard run to put the Packers up 14-3 in the memorable 40-10 victory over Lowndes that clinched the region title.

He also threw another scoring pass to Wheeler and rushed for 108 yards in the win over the Vikings.

“There are not many who can run and throw like he can,” Rogers said.