Nohl Williams still harbors motivation from the way his initial recruitment unfolded coming out of high school, but for that matter, he may not have even been the one most frustrated by it.

"I was under the radar in high school. My high school coach, he still doesn't like how my recruitment went," Williams says over the phone this week.

Mike Moon, the head coach at Pacifica High School in Oxnard, Calif., says he tried to tell the recruiters back then.

His team had just won a state championship with a roster that, by his count, had 10 Division I prospects on it, and Williams, his star cornerback, was arguably the best of the bunch along with running back Malik Sherrod, who went on to Fresno State.

Williams wanted the toughest matchup on the field each game, he played with physicality, he played the game intelligently and moved well. There was just one thing the recruiters couldn't see past ...

"Nohl was one of those kids who was really young in school. He was 16 years old his senior year. The reason that affected his recruitment was spring of your junior year, it's like a meat market -- the coaches come around, the [kids] run around in t-shirt and shorts and they get evaluated. Don't quote me on this, but he was probably around 5-9 at the time," Moon recalls. "And so at 15 years old and 5-9, college coaches can only project so much. I told them, this kid is going to be 6-foot, 6-1 at least. His brother is this tall, his dad's this tall. It's a no-brainer. He's one of our top guys. He [has] elite movement ... He's a dude.

"Well. no big-time FBS programs wanted to come in and offer a 5-9, 15-year-old kid."

Three years later, the recruiting process went a little differently.