SAN FRANCISCO -- Troy Williams has a lot of reasons to be salty.
The Carson native and former star quarterback at Narbonne High School is finally settled in as the starter at No. 19 Utah, whom he will lead into the Foster Farms Bowl against Indiana on Wednesday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
But his path here was anything but conventional.
USC, his dream school, was right in his backyard, but they never recruited him. Neither did UCLA. He wound up in Washington, where he fell out of line following Steve Sarkisian’s departure and only made one start in five appearances. He spent his sophomore season in junior college at Santa Monica College to try for another chance, and dealt with the reality of not being at a Division I program on scholarship.
He paid for his own books, woke up at 6 a.m. every day to drive to school through the slough of L.A. traffic and regularly ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“I could go down the list,” Williams said. “It just gave me a lot of fire.”
He channeled that fire and turned it into a starting job in the Pac-12, at long last. Williams went 10-0 at Santa Monica during the 2015 season, throwing for 2,750 yards and 31 touchdowns. And somewhere along the way, Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham saw his next quarterback and gave him a scholarship for his junior year.
“I saw great poise and leadership,” Whittingham said. “Every attribute we look for in a quality quarterback.”
From the start, Williams proved Whittingham right. He won the starting job, and then — before even playing a snap in a Utes uniform — Williams was voted a team captain.
“That just tells you the level of respect his teammates have for him,” Whittingham said. “He has been a very productive player this year, and our guys definitely believe in him.”
Whittingham called Williams one of the “hardest-working guys that’s ever come through our program.”
“He’s all business,” Whittingham said. “The second practice starts, his chinstraps buckle up. There’s no lack of focus.”
It was Williams’ constant drive to compete, to keep the confidence level high that helped him get back to college football’s big stage.
“I just stayed humble, prayed a lot,” he said. “Stayed true to my work ethic. I always knew I would have an opportunity to get back somewhere. I didn’t know where it would be. Wherever it was, I was going to take that opportunity.”
Once Utah gave him that opportunity, he ran with it. Williams led Utah to a 4-0 start, including a 31-27 win over USC — the hometown school that didn’t bother to recruit him — when he engineered a game-winning 15-play, 93-yard touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter.
“It felt great to do that,” Williams said. “My whole city was watching back home — my family, all my friends, high school coaches, everybody.”
The drive was also the moment Whittingham knew he had himself a quarterback.
“If there was a defining moment, I’d have to say that was it,” Whittingham said. “I could say, ‘Hey, this guy’s a big-time player.’”
Still, Williams expected better of the remainder of the season. Utah went 5-4 in Pac-12 play and dropped three of its last four games, including losses to Oregon and Colorado to end the season, preventing it from playing in a bigger bowl game.
But for Williams, who was eating PB&Js a year ago, the Foster Farms Bowl will do.
“I think about not being at a bowl game last year at JuCo,” he said, “just watching all the bowl games on TV.
“I’m just happy to be here.”
