Debo Williams an early bird with attitude. It’s OK: He’s only a bully on football field
Debo Williams is an early riser. His new South Carolina coaches and teammates quickly figured that out.
The University of Delaware transfer has been awake before sunrise on many occasions the past few months, even getting to USC’s workout facility before good friend MarShawn Lloyd, who usually gets there around 5 a.m. Williams has been known to arrive as early as 4:45 a.m.
“Me, Debo, Ahmarean Brown and David Spaulding were roommates when I first came here,” USC defensive lineman and Georgia State transfer Jordan Strachan said. “I’m listening to something early in the morning and it is like 4:30 in the morning. I’m like, ‘What the heck is going on?’ This kid is getting up going to workouts before it even starts.”
Williams was one of eight transfer portal additions for Shane Beamer and the new USC coaching staff. He’s among the five transfers who came to the Gamecocks and the SEC from smaller colleges with mindset they were overlooked in the recruiting process or that they have something to prove — or both.
He was used to the early-morning workouts back home in Delaware and that has transferred to when he arrived at USC in January. It has become a competition between him and Lloyd to see who could get the facility first.
Lloyd, the four-star running back who missed last year with an ACL injury, is a big reason that Williams is a member of the Gamecocks. The two are both from Delaware and have known each other since middle school when they played on all-star football teams together.
Lloyd knew the Gamecocks were thin at linebacker, so he reached out to his friend about joining him at USC.
Williams signed with Delaware in December of 2019 over Elon and UMass coming out of Smyrna High School in Delaware. He never played a game at Delaware because the Blue Hens didn’t have a fall season in 2020 during the pandemic.
Williams’ latest recruitment was quick one. After talking with Lloyd, he put his name in the transfer portal on a Monday. He committed to USC that Thursday and was in Columbia by Friday.
“I knew what he was capable of doing,” Lloyd told reporters last week. “Coach said we need linebackers and the first thing that popped to my head was Debo. I played against him and I know how physical he is. He works hard just like me.
“He has proved to everyone that he deserves to be here.”
Williams met with reporters for the first time Wednesday and said playing in the Southeastern Conference is as big as it gets. He talked about not having any big offers out of high school, how that still motivates him and how hard it is to be recruited in a small state like Delaware.
“I didn’t have any Power Five offers whether it was SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, so I feel disrespected in that regard. Now it is time to pay,” Williams said.
Williams, whose real name is Daryl, also detailed how he got the nickname “Debo” and living up to it with the Gamecocks. Deebo Samuel was a standout at South Carolina who is in the NFL with San Francisco 49ers.
One of Williams’ youth football coaches gave him the nickname, the same as the bully character in the “Friday” movies, when he was 5 or 6 years old after seeing him dominate in the Oklahoma Drill. The drill, which has largely been banned, has two players line up three yards from each other and go at it.
The nickname stuck through high school and into college, so expect a funny look if you call him Daryl.
Williams said he’s only a bully on the football field. He talked about his tenacity and the ferocity he plays with and his desire to inflict pain on the opposition.
“On the football field I am a bully and I am going to let you know about it,” Williams said. “... I want to put the fear in you. As a running back, I don’t want you to run the ball. Tell your coach to pass it because you don’t want to run no more. You don’t want Debo hitting you. It is just a fear factor. If you are someone like Mike Tyson, when he is fighting he already won because you already fear him.”
This story was originally published April 1, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
