Lincoln-Way East’s Jonas Williams named Herald-News Football Player of the Year

Before his junior season at Lincoln-Way East this year, Jonas Williams had already made a name for himself in his freshman and sophomore seasons at Bolingbrook.

The multi-talented quarterback started for the Raiders for two seasons and drew rave reviews for his individual performance. Unfortunately, his team’s defense didn’t always cooperate and in his sophomore season, Bolingbrook went 3-6 and missed the playoffs.

When Williams transferred to Lincoln-Way East, it led many to think even bigger things for the Griffins, who had lost to Loyola Academy the previous two seasons in the Class 8A state championship game.

Lincoln-Way East had always had a strong defense, and the offense was more than capable. Adding an electric playmaker like Williams seemed to be a match made in football heaven.

It turned out to be a good fit, as Williams led the Griffins to a 12-1 record (one win by forfeit in Week 2) before they lost in the Class 8A semifinals, again to Loyola Academy. Despite not playing in the second half of most of Lincoln-Way East’s games, Williams finished the season with 2,926 passing yards and 42 TDs through the air against just six interceptions while completing 194 of 286 (67.8%) of his passes. Those numbers earned Williams the honor of being named The Herald-News Player of the Year. He also added 395 rushing yards and seven TDs on the ground to the mix.

“Playing on a team with such a good defense really took a lot of stress off of me and the offense,” Williams said. “We knew that we didn’t have to score every time we were on the field. If we turned it over or had to punt, we knew the defense would have our backs and get us the ball in good position.

“And, going up against our defense in practice every day really helped us out. It was nice to not have them chasing us around the field when game day came.”

Next season, Williams will continue his climb toward the top of Illinois' all-time high school passers. His total of 109 touchdowns in his first three seasons put him in fifth place according to the IHSA records, while his 8.932 passing yards are also good for fifth place. The passing touchdown leaders - Jordan Roberts of Aurora Christian and Tyler Hutchinson of Greenville - each had 127, while the passing yardage leader, Logan Malachuk of Nazareth Academy, finished with 11,190.

There isn’t much to playing the position that Williams can’t do. He has a very strong arm, and it is incredibly accurate. And, on the rare occasion that the pass protection breaks down, he has the ability to scramble and find receivers downfield or tuck the ball and run for big gains.

But the physical tools just begin to tell the story.

“I think the best part of my game is mental,” Williams said. “I study the game a lot, watch a lot of film. I’ve been starting for three full years, so there isn’t much I haven’t seen.”

Williams pointed to a couple of games during the Griffins' season that stood out the most.

“The Homewood-Flossmoor game was a good one,” he said. “That was our Homecoming, and our offense was on a roll. That, and the Stevenson game [Class 8A quarterfinals] were probably our two most complete games.”

In this day and age of players transferring here and there or even graduating early in order to get a jump on the college game, the Oregon-bound Williams says he still has a bitter taste after the semifinal loss to Loyola.

“I’ll be back at East next year,” he said. “I haven’t given any thought to reclassifying. I am still young for the junior class, so I would be real young for college. Right now, my focus is on next season.

“I know we lose some key people to graduation, but Lincoln-Way East just keeps rolling. We are super disciplined and we have great coaches that have built a lot of success here. The players know what is expected and they all buy into it. We hold ourselves accountable. There isn’t a lot of slacking off or anything like that during practices or games. As the quarterback, I am the team leader, and that comes pretty naturally to me. Once I practiced a few times with these guys, they felt it, too, and things went pretty smooth.”