College or NFL? Clemson wide receiver Antonio Williams makes his decision
Antonio Williams is coming back.
Clemson’s leading receiver is returning to the school for his senior season in 2025 instead of declaring early for the NFL Draft, he announced on Friday.
“More to be done,” Williams wrote on social media.
Williams was named a first team All-ACC wide receiver as a redshirt sophomore after leading Clemson in catches (75), receiving yards (904), touchdowns (11) and yards per game (64.6) in 2024. All of those numbers were career highs.
Williams (5-11, 190) was also Clemson’s first All-ACC wide receiver in four seasons, dating back to Amari Rodgers (first team) and Cornell Powell (third team) in 2020.
Now, he’s returning for 2025 and will team up with senior quarterback Cade Klubnik and sophomore receivers Bryant Wesco Jr. and T.J. Moore (again).
Williams is the first of three prominent Tigers players to announce their NFL decisions. Junior offensive lineman Blake Miller and redshirt senior defensive tackle DeMonte Capehart have yet to announce whether they’re returning for 2025.
That trio of receivers plus Klubnik was a big reason Clemson went 10-4, won the ACC championship and appeared in the first round of the College Football Playoff in 2024.
Wesco (708 yards, five TDs) and Moore (651 yards, five TDs) ended the year as every-game starters alongside Williams and made Clemson the only program in the country to have two freshman receivers with 500-plus receiving yards each.
Antonio Williams’ Clemson career
Williams, 20, was a freshman All American by multiple outlets after leading Clemson in receiving yards as a true freshman in 2022. He only played in four games because of various injuries in 2023 and took an injury redshirt year.
But the Irmo native and Dutch Fork High School alum was resurgent as a junior. He became only the fourth Clemson players since 2000 to record a passing, rushing and receiving touchdown in the same season; averaged the most punt return yards by a Tiger since 2017; and posted the team’s first 75-catch season since 2020.
Williams is one of only 13 Clemson players to record 150 career catches. He’s also caught a pass in all 33 games he’s played and will have a shot at breaking Hunter Renfrow’s school record for consecutive games with a catch (43) as a senior.
Although these two would be tougher to achieve, Williams will also go into his senior season within striking distance of two other major Clemson records.
His 153 career catches are 92 shy of Artavis Scott’s record 245, and his 17 career receiving touchdowns are 10 shy of the school record 27 which three players (DeAndre Hopkins, Sammy Watkins and Tee Higgins) share.
This story was originally published January 3, 2025 at 11:05 AM.
