When the Petal offense is clicking, it’s hard to stop. Senior quarterback Jordan Wilson has three senior receivers to spread the ball to in Deuce Watts, Marquise Bridges and Nicholas Russell, and moving senior Phat Watts to running back earlier in the season has proven to be the right move.
“They all want the ball every play, and they’re always open,” Petal coach Marcus Boyles said after last Friday’s win over Brandon. “When you have three or four guys like we have, it makes the opposing team unsure who they have.”
But, the emergence of junior receiver Trent Williams has made the Panthers even more dangerous on that side of the ball. Williams is currently fourth on the team with 182 yards and he’s second on the team with three touchdowns and 25 receptions.
“I thought he stepped up and made some big plays,” Boyles said on The PineBeltSPORTS Podcast last week. “He’s had some opportunities this year, and he’s had a couple of big catches, but he’s dropped a couple of balls. I thought (against Oak Grove two weeks ago) he put it together, and we need him to do that.”
As a sophomore, Williams only caught three passes for 11 yards all season. He did, however, receive his first college offer from Arkansas State in the spring. That was a surprise for most people around the program, and even for Williams, too.
“I was extremely surprised,” he said. “It was just a blessing from God and I thank him for that every single day.”
Needless to say, Williams had a lot of expectations for himself during the summer and into the season after the offer, but the season didn’t start as well as he would have liked. Williams had an early season problem with dropped passes
“I was extremely disappointed in myself going into Hattiesburg, Gulfport and those early games where I had those drops,” Williams said. “It really just touched me as a receiver. Any receiver gets hurt by dropped balls, but I knew I had to work hard and get better every single day. We have to do that as a team.”
It seems Williams has gotten over the dropped passes because Wilson has connected well with him over the course of the past couple of games. After the first two games, Williams said he told Wilson those were all his fault and he would work hard to get it corrected.
Williams hasn’t had any eye-popping games statistics wise, but after only catching one pass in each of the first two games against Hattiesburg and Gulfport, he caught four passes for 37 yards Week 3 against Brother Martin, then recorded a season-high six receptions in a loss to Pearl a few weeks later.
“That’s really what got me motivated to keep going and keep moving forward,” Williams said of the Brother Martin game. “I knew I had more to prove.”
There’s no doubt his best two games have been during the last two weeks at Oak Grove and at home versus Brandon. He’s tallied 10 receptions for 101 yards and three touchdowns in those outings.
“I knew I had to step up and be a leader and ballplayer when I was called to serve my brothers,” Williams said. “If they need a touchdown, and they’re relying on me, I have to go get the ball.”
The Petal offense is averaging 377 yards per game since starting district play, and the more players who can get involved during a game, the more dangerous it can be. Williams is enjoying every second of being a part of this offense, too.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “We can trust Phat, we know he’s going to run the ball hard. We have four different receivers who can catch the ball, and it’s just fun. We have fun in practice, we work hard and game time we just going even harder."
