How UW Huskies QB Demond Williams Jr. stays cool despite lofty expectations
SEATTLE – There’s one topic that can convince Demond Williams Jr. to open up a little.
The 19-year-old sophomore is always in quarterback mode when he speaks during news conferences. By virtue of his position, Williams is the face of the program. Coach Jedd Fisch bet UW’s future on him. It’s something Williams understands, a weight he’s carried in the past.
But a little bit of his personality shines through when he talks about his dogs. He adopted Deuce, a 10-month-old Rottweiler, in January and has spent the past several months training his puppy.
“I moved to a new place,” Williams said. “Just having the company made it feel more like home.”
The Williams family has owned Rottweilers since Demond was young. Around 2018, they adopted the dog they still have in Arizona. It’s name? Heisman.
On Saturday, Washington welcomes Colorado State to Husky Stadium to begin the 2025 season. After starting three games last season, this will be Williams’ first full campaign as UW’s quarterback, and the beginning of a new era. One Fisch said he hopes will end in New York, at the Heisman Trophy ceremony.
“He’s done everything right to this point,” Fisch said in July. “But he’s only a sophomore. We have arguably 104 weeks more – at a minimum – to keep watching him get better every single week.”
A path to follow
Arizona’s been a hot bed for high-school football talent for decades but hasn’t always been known for its quarterbacks.
But starting in 2018, the Grand Canyon State began churning out quarterbacks at a previously unseen rate. Tyler Shough, Jacob Conover, Chubba Purdy, Ty Thompson and Kai Millner were all blue-chip quarterback recruits from Arizona between 2018-21.
Spencer Rattler, however, was considered the best of the bunch. The current New Orleans Saints signal caller was a top-10 recruit nationally and the consensus No. 1 quarterback in the 2019 cycle after a successful stint at Pinnacle High.
While Rattler was emerging as one of the country’s top quarterback recruits, Demond Williams Sr. – a former cornerback who played at Michigan State – was searching for a way to foster his son’s desire to play quarterback. It led him to Mike Giovando, a quarterback trainer in the Phoenix area who’d worked extensively with Rattler.
“At the time, Spencer was All-World,” Demond Williams Sr. said. “I said, ‘How can I get my son to resemble that?’ And (Giovando) said, ‘Spencer never missed a day of our training.’ So I said, ‘Perfect, we’ll be here every Sunday,’ and shook his hand.”
Every weekend, Giovando and Demond Williams Jr. worked through the quarterback drills that made Rattler a national recruit. Demond Williams Jr. was just 9 years old when they started.
Giovando said his approach to coaching quarterbacks involves teaching them the entire sport of football. Playing quarterback is as much of a mental challenge as it is a physical one, and Giovando – who has more than 25 years of experience at various levels of the game – jokingly described himself as a quarterback psychologist.
“I know the game,” he said. “I know the psyche. I called plays. I coached quarterbacks my whole life. I know how they think. I know how different guys are wired.”
Giovando said he always wants his quarterbacks to be elite throwers and spends a majority of his time with younger players ensuring they’re not compensating for a lack of strength with short-term fixes.
Working with Giovando allowed Williams to get experience practicing with some of the other top quarterback prospects in Arizona, including Rattler.
“He was a smaller guy,” Rattler said. “But he could always spin it.”
Rattler and Giovando agreed that Williams’ athleticism and natural talent were apparent almost immediately. They were simply waiting for him to physically mature.
“He was fast, he could run,” Giovando said. “You could just tell … he had that it factor.”
Building Basha
Few schools in Arizona are as well represented as Basha in the 2027 recruiting cycle, which includes four of the top eight prospects in the state.
Just a few years ago, this much talent coming from Basha was virtually unthinkable.
Located in the suburb of Chandler, Arizona, about 30 miles southeast of Phoenix, Basha doesn’t have a long football history. The school opened in 2002 but was never much of a threat to traditional powerhouses like Chandler High, Hamilton High, Saguaro High and Brophy College Preparatory.
But Basha was the perfect place for Williams because he was immediately able to contend for the starting varsity quarterback role as a freshman. Coach Chris McDonald allowed him to compete in the summer. By the time the Bears started padded practices, McDonald said it was apparent that Williams had what it took.
“The moment never gets too big for him,” said McDonald, entering his seventh season at Basha. “Just at a very young age, he was a consummate professional and treated his craft as such.”
Williams played in nine games as a freshman in 2020. He completed 63.6% of his passes for 1,814 yards and 16 touchdowns. He added 239 yards rushing and three touchdowns on 85 carries, too. Basha went 6-3, a massive improvement on their 4-7 record a year earlier.
McDonald also noted Williams’ ability to earn the respect of his older teammates despite being just 14 years old.
“He showed up every day with a really good attitude,” McDonald said. “Wasn’t above anybody. … You might be a senior who doesn’t want to hang out with a freshman, but you’re sure as hell going to respect him.”
Williams’ freshman season was just a preview. He tallied 2,632 yards passing and 20 touchdowns while completing 74.4% of his attempts as a sophomore, adding 644 yards rushing and 14 touchdowns rushing.
So entering Williams’ junior season, McDonald thought Basha might be able to do something special. He also knew the season was going to start with a major test.
Basha traveled to Southern California for its first game of the season, taking on Los Alamitos High and senior quarterback Malachi Nelson, a five-star prospect. Basha fell behind 21-0 in the first quarter, but Williams led a furious comeback to help the Bears tie the game by halftime.
Trailing 28-27 in the fourth quarter, Williams took the snap, evaded an unblocked rusher, then took off up the right seam for the go-ahead 21-yard touchdown to seal the 33-28 win.
Williams finished the season with 3,135 total yards – including 2,339 passing, 764 rushing and 32 receiving. He passed for 23 touchdowns against one interception.
“It meant a lot because it kind of showed what I can do to help flip a program,” Williams said. “Coming in, they won four games. And then we won six. And then we won 10. They’re a national powerhouse now, so just seeing how that came about is a blessing.”
His play at Basha attracted recruiting attention. He was a composite four-star prospect with offers from around the country. Williams initially chose Ole Miss, committing weeks after leading Basha to the state championship. One program, however, wasn’t willing to let him leave the West Coast without putting up a fight.
“We weren’t happy about it when he committed somewhere else,” said Jimmie Dougherty, UW’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. “But we were like, ‘All right, we’ve got to do everything we can to try and flip this guy.”
Nearly seven months after he committed to Ole Miss, Williams flipped to Arizona in July 2023. He then embarked on one of the greatest high-school football seasons in the state’s history. Williams threw for 3,350 yards while completing 76.8% of his attempts. He also added 1,136 yards rushing on 151 carries. Williams totaled 54 touchdowns – 34 passing and 20 rushing. McDonald called Williams “one of the best players I’ll ever coach.”
“I was just really blessed,” McDonald said, “for four years to watch him grow.”
The center of attention
Williams has been in the spotlight essentially from the moment he stepped on the gridiron.
“You can’t go out and be an idiot when you’re the quarterback of the football team,” Giovando said. “You cannot put yourself in situations where something stupid can happen. You’ve got to make sure you’re doing the right thing all the time.”
Williams is used to the pressure and attention. He continues to take the right steps on the road to college football stardom. He followed up his strong performance for UW at the Sun Bowl by winning the Manning Passing Academy’s “Air it Out” accuracy challenge, the same competition Michael Penix Jr. won before the 2023 season.
It was another opportunity for his following to grow. Williams has more than 19,000 followers on Instagram, more than several recent Seahawks draft picks. Williams said he passed the 10,000-follower milestone after he committed to Ole Miss.
Yet Williams is rarely affected by his fame, Giovando said. McDonald and Rattler noted his cool temperament.
Rattler knows the craziness of being a touted prospect better than most. He said the wild emotional swings fueled by social media are easy to buy into as a young player, but relying on the people in his life who know him on a personal level like family, coaches and teammates helped him block out the outside noise and focus on his craft.
Williams keeps the same approach. His interests outside of a football field are essentially limited to playing video games. Now that he has Deuce, Williams said he has more incentive to indulge his homebody tendencies.
More important, Williams knows what’s in front of him. He’s followed the path, step by step, to be here at Washington, about to embark on what UW fans hope will be a breakout season.
“He knows where he’s going,” Giovando said. “He knows what he wants to do.”