On the other hand, Williams played through his first significant leg injury this fall and spent most of the season out of position on offense; he will almost certainly play wide receiver in college. He played his senior season with five new offensive linemen on a team that lost several future college football players from its 2003 roster, including Maryland's Trey Covington, Virginia's Theirrien "Bud" Davis and Florida's Derrick Harvey. The Raiders were 12-1 in 2003, 8-3 this fall.
"It's different every year -- different players on your team, and you have to adjust to the people on your team," said Eleanor Roosevelt running back Jeff Harrison. "He can't do everything by himself, it's a team thing. . . . There's not a chance of him being overrated."
Despite having highly rated recruit Derrick Williams, shown playing quarterback, the Eleanor Roosevelt football team lost to C.H. Flowers in the Maryland 4A playoffs.
(Jonathan Ernst For The Washington Post)
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_____Prized Recruit_____
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Part 1: Eleanor Roosevelt's Derrick Williams is stepping carefully around scholarship offers and those who have offered them.
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Part 2: Williams has surrounded himself with those that will best advise the decision for his future.
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Part 3: The Internet has changed the recruiting process significantly in the past decade.
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Part 4: Wins and losses hardly matter when it comes to evaluating prep football prospects.
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Part 5: With all of the recent coaching changes in college football, Williams seeks stability with his school of choice.
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Williams's No. 1 ranking attracted the attention of opponents. Lynch told his team that Williams's celebrity could help their own scholarship opportunities, and Severna Park's players celebrated their victory by screaming, "Number one all-American, I don't think so, baby," and, "Who's number one now?"
Still, moments later, the same Severna Park players happily predicted that they would one day watch Williams play in the NFL, and he continued to collect good wishes from opponents throughout the season. Before joining his celebrating teammates after their playoff victory over Roosevelt, C.H. Flowers running back Ramond Dixon grabbed Williams and told him, "You did your thing, D, you did your thing."
The recruiting Web site Rivals.com continues to rate Williams the No. 1 prospect in the country. He climbed from No. 9 to No. 7 on analyst Tom Lemming's list as the season went on, and dropped from No. 1 to No. 3 in Scout.com's latest national rankings, which were released on Sunday.
But the local media members who selected the Washington area's offensive and defensive MVP for the Quarterback Club did not choose Williams; those awards were claimed by Whitaker and DeMatha's Kenny Jefferson, respectively.
"I don't want to sound cocky, but I'm determined to do good in college," Williams said. "If everything goes right, if I do good in college and the Lord blesses me and I'm a first-round pick in the NFL draft, we can look back at the people who doubted me and say, 'Thank you very much.' "
Williams is, however, one of 14 nominees for a national player of the year award given out in conjunction with the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, and he is one of five finalists for a national strength-and-speed award. And the fact that he'll spend this weekend watching youth football does little to damper the enthusiasm of local coaches.
"There are kids [in the Washington area] who had better years offensively, and there are kids who had better defensive years," Lackey Coach Scott Chadwick said. "If you ask me one guy to start my team with in the Washington area, I'm still probably picking Derrick Williams."
