Persistence Paying Off For Bessemer’s Williams

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - August 24, 2025

The long road that Roy Williams took through college football was chosen.

Now, he didn’t know what the details would look like and could have done without some rejection along the way. But he knew it would be long and was confident it would pay off at some point. Quitting, even when he was attending UAB classes for nearly two years as a non-football player, was never really an option. He was going to keep fighting to get on the field until they told him he couldn’t.

He wanted the trials of a long road.

“I mean, I didn't look at it as to be frustrated,” Williams said after a UAB football practice earlier this week. “I just took it as a challenge to go harder. It was a lot of out days where I'd be working when nobody knew, because I knew where I was going to go. I knew it would be a long road I also knew it was a road I would take over if I had to.”

We’ll skip forward for a minute. Williams, a 5-foot-11, 180-pound Bessemer native, who is listed on the UAB football roster as a redshirt junior, has been flirting with finishing at top of the depth chart throughout preseason practice. There are times he has lined up with the first team, sometimes for long stretches. There is no doubt that he will be in the rotation when the season kicks off on Aug. 28 against Alabama State. There is also no doubt that he not only has been one of the best stories of the camp but he’s earned everything that is coming to him.

“He just got his opportunity, didn't waver away from them and took advantage of it every time he's in the game,” said UAB cornerback coach Ryan Lewis Sr. “He's turning the ball over. You can't deny a guy that's turning the ball over. He just does everything we tell him to do. If we say, ‘Hey Roy, go sit down and don't practice today,’ he’s the same person if  he's practicing all day. You can't do nothing but love those type of guys that play for us.”

Williams was one of the better athletes on his team at Bessemer City High. The team needed a quarterback during his senior season. He had never played the position but was asked to do so and he did without complaint. Williams, who also played in the secondary, wanted to play college football but the only offer he got was to play defensive back at Division III Faulkner University in Montgomery. The way he looked at it, that’s when the clock started on his long road.

He spent the fall semester at Faulkner while playing in three games.

“It was a great learning experience,” Williams said. “I feel like me going to Faulkner was probably the best thing, because it humbled me to understand that this is a privilege. I feel like me going there, kind of got me mentally ready. You're going to be in predicaments and situations where stuff is not going to go your way, how are you going to react?”

He attended a UAB camp in the summer of 2022 and thought he was one of the better defensive backs on the field. He said a UAB coach told him they would bring him into the program the following January but there was a new staff by that time. He reached out to the new staff to let them know he was interested in walking on to the program but didn’t find a spot. Williams was enrolled at UAB in 2022 and 2023. He often worked out at the Campus Recreation Center and also joined some friends doing football workouts in Hoover. He found different drills on YouTube to do individual workouts. He also checked in with the UAB staff as much as possible. On Saturdays in the fall, he sat in the Protective Stadium stands watching what he hoped were his future teammates.

As strange at it sounds, he never lost hope.

“It was all part of the process,” Williams said.

The call he had been waiting for came early in the 2024 spring semester. The phone rang about 6 a.m. with the invitation to join the team. He was at the facility within a couple of hours to get the process started.  He played in eight games last season with his two tackles coming against Tulsa. He didn’t make a huge impact on the new defensive staff in the spring, which led to a conversation with Dilfer.

“I can say I had an opportunity in the spring that I didn't take full advantage of,” Williams said. “Coach D was straight with me. He was like you can play better. He just he straight up told me that. Over the summer, I took that personal, but not in a bad way. That was a little reality check.”

It didn’t take long during fall camp for UAB nickels coach Tee Mitchell to stop in for a conversation with Dilfer.

“Coach Tee came up to me, I don't know, maybe early in the second week, he came up and said ‘Hey, give me the history here,’” Dilfer said. “I'm like, honestly, he was the guy that did this last camp, but because he wasn't one of the guys they recruited, they kind of always found a reason not to play him instead of to play him. This staff comes in with no bias, and this staff is really good about not caring if Johnny recruited him or Trent recruited him or whatever. The best player plays. He's just kind of earned what he's received.”

Obviously, it still remains to be seen how the snaps are divided in what is a crowded secondary. As of now, it appears that perhaps returnee Tariq Watson and Pitt transfer Tamarion Crumpley are in line to start at cornerback. But the rotation will run deep and Williams should be a key part. All he wants is the opportunity to take another important step in the long road.

“My destination, I feel like the journey is the most important part because you learn a lot of stuff from the journey,” Williams said. “I wouldn’t change a thing because it made me the man that I am. I feel like it’s what I needed to get me where I’m at today.”