This is the second installment of an annual DawgNation series on the “Next Generation” of Georgia football players from each signing class. 5-star Justin Williams enrolled in January. He was rated the nation’s No. 1 LB and No. 10 overall recruit for the 247Sports Composite. He was the No. 1 LB and the No. 6 overall prospect for the On3 Industry Ranking.
Too good to be true.
That’s a defining phrase behind the story of Georgia football freshman linebacker Justin Williams.
Williams was the consensus No. 1 LB in the 2024 class. He is the highest-rated linebacker the ‘Dawgs have signed in the Kirby Smart era. He clocked a 4.44 laser time in the 40-yard dash at the Under Armour Houston regional camp in March of 2023.
The Georgia staff likes to keep track of their incoming prospects every fall and when they saw his academic transcript, he had the highest GPA (4.7!!) in the class.
The 5-star LB pulled off an improbable feat this past fall: He came up with a Pick-6 in three straight games for his Oak Ridge High School team.
Watch him at a game. He’s the teammate out early who also hangs behind late to shake every hand and dap up his teammates. He wanted to reach the academic top 10 percent of his high school class and then the top five percent.
Williams has had to tell his high school coaches every summer he had to miss a full week of practice. He was not missing that. The reason? He had to go to church camp. His older brother, Kavon Townsend, is also on camps this spring after transferring from a junior college in California as a walk-on receiver with the ‘Dawgs.
Every bit of that sounds too good to be true for the next great LB in Athens.
But there’s a story that explains why Williams is a one percent person on a team of one percent athletes at a one percent program.
The family that raised him has meant so much. It starts with his mother DeVandria Williams and his Dad Bernard Townsend.
They tell their story far better than anyone with a voice recorder and a notepad.
“I’m not the biological Dad,” Townsend said.
“He was my first husband,” Williams said. “And we raised three. After our divorce, I found out I was pregnant. That father wasn’t active in his life.”
“But that’s their brother,” Townsend said right afterward about Justin and that relationship regarding their children.
“He’s been Dad ever since,” Williams said.
“I don’t look at him no other way,” Townsend said. “That’s mine, too. That’s my son.”
Williams was 18 when they got married. Townsend was 21. They were so young. Townsend was 34 when Justin was born. He looked at it like they were already raising three children together.
Townsend was going to raise him just the same.
“He was like ‘We are just going to work through it’ when it happened,” Williams said. “We worked it out. We stayed together another 14-15 years after our divorce. Until right before Justin turned 16. We had different addresses, but we were still the best of friends.”
The two of them kept dating after their divorce. Their kids became their focus. They described it as “just running out of time” to make it all work out.
“We lost each other,” they both will say.
“I think that time just ran out for me to prove to him the woman I was going to become,” Williams said. “Because he met me when I was still a child.”
Townsend now shouts out “Justo” whenever Williams makes a play.
There has been discussion in their family about Williams taking on Townsend’s last name. The back of that Georgia jersey might read Williams-Townsend one day. Williams has asked about that.
“Townsend-Williams,” his mother is also quick to say.
Adoption is another possibility.
“Just something honorary,” Williams said of Townsend. “I definitely do thank him for the position he’s played in Justin’s life. That was our one pact when we met. We didn’t know each other as much personally but we had one goal. We didn’t really know both of our parents. Well, I knew mine but my Dad left early. And we said if nothing else - when we found out we were pregnant - we said we were going to raise these kids together.”
“I always said I am going to have my kids with one girl,” Townsend said. “Everybody asks me ‘Would I change anything?’ Hell no. I would never change not meeting her because I wouldn’t have my kids, man.”
“I’ve got the four best kids, man. That I could ever ask for. All my kids are self-efficient. They are grown. They are doing their own things.”
Justin Williams: The family behind Georgia’s 5-star LB signee
Their daughter, Kayla, is studying for a career in forensics.
“She’s got the best husband you could ever ask for,” Townsend said.
The oldest son Kyle relocated to California. He was in the same state as Kavon.
“The support we’ve gotten from both our parents has meant everything,” Kyle Townsend said.
Williams is the baby boy.
“When I went and got Justin’s name tattooed on me, he cried,” Townsend said. “I’m like ‘Dude you are my son, bro. You are my son’ and I just wanted that.”
What if Townsend had been bitter? Or if he didn’t show the same love and affection he did their mutual children? Would the future 5-star linebacker have such a great heart? The one on display every game with the respect and appreciation he has for every teammate?
Maybe. Maybe not. But Williams made sure of it.
“I was blessed to have a lot of mentors,” she said. “Even before. When [Townsend] would work late at night, he knew that if we weren’t at home, we were at church. I had mentors in the church to expose our other two boys. They played music. They played trombone and trumpet. My daughter took piano. Things like that. They’ve always been cultured. My daughter danced. I knew that if we didn’t work out, I was still going to put them around the mentorship of my vision for them. That was to have a better life that we didn’t have.”
“To teach them about money. Teach them to own. To own things sooner rather than later.”
Williams said Townsend was the one who introduced the freshmen Bulldog to football. It was just like his other brothers.
“All I knew was him as my Dad growing up,” Justin Williams said back in October. “Everytime when I woke up, I had two parents. It was great until finally they called it quits.”
“Having him as my Dad has been great. Somebody to call. Somebody who was always there with football. Every time I’m down on myself, he will just call me and make me feel better. He may seem a little rude or hard at times with that, but I love him for everything he does for me. He’s a great Dad.”
That tattoo meant a little more than it might seem. It is on Townsend’s bicep.
“He always had tattoos of the names of my older brothers and everybody else,” Justin Williams said back in October. “But then I was like ‘Dang where’s my name?’ and he finally got it. It kind of symbolized how much he cared about me and everything and all his love for me.”
“That’s my Dad. That’s my father figure at the end of the day. No matter what.”
Their “co-parenting” relationship could have turned out toxic. But those two finish each other’s sentences. Still. They could both be in new relationships and that would not matter.
There are a lot of divorces that do not work out like that. Townsend said he was bitter at their end for a time. But he knew he had to let that go.
“I will forever love her,” Townsend said of the mother of his children. “Not in love with her. I will forever love her because she allowed me to raise my kids. Our kids. I will forever love her to death for that.”
Williams is always upbeat. He’s always smiling. Did the example those two set at an early age shape that?
“For sure,” Justin Williams said last fall. “It definitely did. I’d say my Dad is a little tougher on me. My mom is a little easier on me. Always giving me everything I-might-ask-for-type of thing. But it definitely shaped me into the person I am. They make me the person I am. Both qualities together. The smiles. The toughness. It has helped me a lot. Honestly.”
Too good to be true.
But it is all true.
Justin Williams: Georgia’s Glenn Schumann must be living right
Too good to be true.
Williams was a 5-star LB at this time a year ago. He was in the football hotbed of Texas with power programs and NIL-heavyweights like Texas and Texas A&M around. They wanted Williams. Oregon was also a major contender down to the wire in this recruitment.
And yet the University of Georgia did not offer Williams until March 30.
UGA defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann continually apologized to Williams and his family for a very rare drop of the ball by Georgia’s juggernaut recruiting machine.
The ‘Dawgs had him on their board as a running back. That’s what Williams was when he camped in Athens as a freshman. His Oak Ridge High School coaches had asked him to move from RB to DB during his freshman year because of injuries. He just stayed on that side of the ball.
Williams wasn’t even a full-time LB in high school until his junior year.
Given all those circumstances, it is nigh-impossible for any program to sign a 5-star LB. Especially the nation’s No. 1 LB out of Texas. That’s far outside of Georgia’s wheelhouse recruiting footprint.
How did Georgia pull that one off despite not offering until almost April of his junior year? And despite not making NIL a major part of the pitch?
Well, let’s say Schumann must be living right.
Townsend’s roots are in Chicago, but Williams only lived there for about six months. Their mother moved around in her career as a hairstylist with a major corporation. He lived in Minnesota for a time, but they eventually settled in Texas.
While Williams was growing up, his Dad had two college teams he followed closely. Michigan was his favorite. Georgia was also right there.
The second big boost here was because of Georgia’s reputation. Townsend and Williams knew all about Georgia and its back-to-back championships. They also knew how well the program spammed its top LBs into the NFL.
There was something else aside from that.
“I took Justin to the bank right before he was in high school,” his mother said. “It was probably the seventh or the eighth grade. He needed to get his own debit card so he could have his own money for things and I could get money to him quickly.”
Williams remembers being at the bank with his brother for an hour. He finally got to pick out a custom design for his debit card. He found one he liked. It was nice, but he kept looking.
“Then I see a couple of colleges,” Williams said. “I was like I didn’t want this one or that one I wanted the Georgia one and now I have a Georgia debit card. Since like the eighth grade. It is crazy how like fate works and everything like that.”
Williams didn’t have a Georgia offer for the longest time. But he had a UGA debit card.
“I think about it every day honestly when I look at it,” Justin Williams told DawgNation last fall. “Getting food or something. That’s just God. Honestly. Anything can happen. He was just all those steps that he was building up to Georgia. They came in last.”
Georgia’s offer was easily a year later than the normal timeline for when the program identifies and offers the nation’s top LBs in every class. The ‘Dawgs normally start prioritizing their top LB targets in every class when they are in the summer before their sophomore year, if not a lot sooner than that.
“I was watching them in the national championship game,” Bernard Townsend said. “And I’ll be honest at the time, I never thought that offer was going to come. I said ‘If they haven’t come by now, they are not coming’ with an offer.”
When he finally got the Georgia offer, it mattered.
“It was written in the stars man,” Bernard Townsend said. “Man, we cried when we got that offer from them. He had kept saying ‘Why why why had Georgia and Alabama not offered yet?’ and I kept saying for him to give it time. Them dudes have been busy playing in big games and winning championships.”
When Wiliams finally got the offer from Georgia, it inspired a lot of emotion.
“Since I was a freshman, I wanted Georgia,” Williams said. “Ever since I was a freshman and I went to their camp, I loved Georgia. I grew up an Alabama fan since 2012, but ever since I went to Georgia I just wanted an offer to play there so bad. Finally getting the call from coach Schumman, I just broke into tears. God is doing amazing things. I’d been praying for a Georgia offer and then God finally made it happen. It just brought tears to my eyes honestly.”
Those were fortunate circumstances that got Georgia in it. Schumman still had to show why he’s the best in the country at what he does. That’s recruiting the nation’s top LBs and doing it in a style that is all his own.
“Schumann said they had a radius they go off of,” Townsend said. “For us to come to you out of that radius you have to be freaking special. Special for us to go outside that radius. And that made me feel good.”
Some of Schumann’s former players called Williams. Roquan Smith called him from China.
“When I got that call, I literally almost teared up,” Williams said. “I am a very emotional person so just the thought of him calling when he is in the offseason and on his own personal time to take time out just to call somebody like me, it was just great. To me, that was really a testament to what Georgia is really like and how much they care about you. For Roquan to call me like that.”
That helped Georgia get really in the mix. Schumann had to show him why Georgia was different on his official visit.
Why did Justin Williams eventually decide to play Georgia football?
The decision came down to Georgia and Oregon. Those were the teams he loved coming up, including Alabama.
“It was always about those uniforms,” his father Bernard Townsend said. “Always those chrome uniforms.”
The Ducks had built up a considerable lead. Schumann’s consistent messaging had to hawk them down.
The official visits loomed large. The ledger here must also show that former corners coach Fran Brown was the first real solid connection the ‘Dawgs made with Williams. They had a real heart-to-heart talk when they first met about their mutual Christian faith and also the stories about their upbringing.
But it was up to Schumann to bring this one home.
“I told [Schumman] on his official that this is on you,” Townsend said. “He doesn’t have a connection in Oregon. He has a connection with Tosh [Lupoi] but that’s not his position coach. Justin is about the guy he is going to be in the room with. He needs that relationship. I told Schu ‘It is on you, bro if you want him’ with all of it.”
That was when Williams would tell his father he was feeling Oregon. But also ‘Man, I really like Schu’ when he started thinking hard about Georgia.
“That’s another thing about Justin,” his mother said. “He’s all about building a relationship. He’s very loyal.”
Oregon had some turnover with his potential position coach. That did help. But the Oregon and the UGA officials were just different. His mother said “the authenticity” about Georgia won them all over.
“It is about what they showed us when the ‘Lights, Camera, Action’ part is all over,” she said. “They are still the same people. Always still the same people. That’s everybody at Georgia.”
“It was not the red carpet treatment on the visits and the officials with them and then we will see you in January. They knew my middle son. They knew my Mom. They knew the sister. And that’s just my best friend and I call her my sister. They did their homework. They get to know you.”
That all came out in the UGA official. A big swing was on “Church Day” and that was big given how spiritual both Williams and his mother are. Their Father’s Day church trip in Oregon didn’t offer the same type of worship service that they were used to.
Lupoi also did not attend that service. That same “Church Day” in Athens was proof Schumann did his homework.
“When we went on the Georgia OV, Schumann and his wife were right there next to us in church,” Townsend said.
“Not only that, but Schumann watched where Justin goes,” his mother said. “Literally when we pulled up Justin was like ‘Ok, I feel better. This is exactly like The Woodlands church’ and that church was like the one he goes to back home. Glenn was watching and paid attention to what Justin does at home and wanted that church day in Athens to be like home.”
“It meant so much to me that he did that,” his father said.
“Schumann did his research to find out where he would want to go if he moved here,” his mother said. “It sunk in. My son was standing up and videotaping the service. He was all in. That was my Georgia ‘A-ha’ moment. Because I started to see Schumann for the type of man he is and that’s a man that is going to get to know you.”
That did not change once he signed. When Williams graduated from Oak Ridge High School in December, his future position coach was there to shake his hand and congratulate him.
“That’s why I got love for this guy and UGA,” Townsend said. “He didn’t have to be there away from his family and getting ready for a bowl game. But he did. That goes a long way with me.”
Check out the senior film for Williams below.
The things that just kept coming up about Justin Williams
His oldest brother, Kyle, has his own life in California. But he describes his brother in great detail.
“He’s a sponge,” Kyle Townsend said. “He’s a humble guy. He’s shy but open at the same time. Once you get to know him, he’s a freaking big old teddy bear. But he’ll freaking knock your head off any time any day.”
His mother would get emails at times from school. Someone would share their appreciation for seeing the superstar football player pick up pieces of paper around campus at lunch.
“It is just natural,” his father Bernard Townsend said. “He’s not doing it for nobody to see it. Not so he can get spotlighted or anything. That’s just him.”
When he was on his official visit, his mother said that Kirby Smart told him Georgia wants its linebackers to force more turnovers in the future. Townsend and Williams remembered that.
That’s what he worked on for his senior year. He brought down 108 tackles in 12 games, including 36 stops for losses.
He had 9.5 sacks, but Williams wanted to be the type of LB who came up with three straight weeks of Pick-6s for his team.
“Justo” also forced seven fumbles as a senior like this highlight play in the clip below.
“He wants to make sure that ya’ll [the Georgia football staff] made a good choice in me,” his mother said.
Really? This is the highest-rated LB prospect that Smart has ever signed. And he wanted to be sure the ‘Dawgs knew they offered the right player.
“Everybody expected him to have that fan moment,” she said. “Like I am at Georgia now. No, he only got higher and higher. He just keeps turning it up. Anything he thinks he needs to work on, he is going to do it. He’s going to give them a reason to say we picked the right guy.”
Too good to be true. That’s just the way Justin Williams is.
“That’s the meaning of his name,” his mother said. “His name means ‘Just is’ and that’s literally been his personality his whole life. That’s just how he is.”
Check out the “Next Generation” video breakdown on Williams embedded below.
SENTELL’S INTEL
(check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)
