Prior to the start of fall camp on Wednesday, defensive coordinator Tony White described Houston transfer Jeremiah Wilson as a “ball of light.”
That may have been an understatement.
The 5-foot-10 and 185-pound cornerback is a contained source of cosmic energy that is ready to burst at any moment. And that is something that his new teammates have already come to enjoy.
“Jerry (Wilson) is one of those dudes who pushes me. I think Jerry’s work ethic is probably better than mine. I try to be one of the first people to the facility every day. He is always here before me — and it really makes me mad,” wide receiver Duce Robinson joked. “I see his car in the parking lot every single day before me. And I try to show up earlier and earlier and earlier, and yet somehow he is still beating me. So I’m questioning, ‘Does he live at the facility?’ But then you really see how much it translates on the field. He’s always going up to the second and third floors to study guys.”
“I get here around 5:30 everyday,” Wilson smiled when speaking to the media on Thursday. “I just get in the training room and get in the hot tub, stretch out a little bit. Get my mind right and eat some breakfast; watch a little tape upstairs before we start some meetings.”
“I’m going to have to wake up 15 minutes earlier tomorrow (to beat Duce),” Wilson later joked.
It’s a work ethic that Wilson learned from current Arizona Cardinals safety Garrett Williams while Wilson was a freshman at Syracuse. Now back in a Tony White defense at Florida State, Wilson is installing that same work ethic into Florida State’s secondary. Other defensive backs have joined Wilson as early arrivers at the facility. Edwin Joseph, Earl Little and Quindarrius Jones were just a few that were named.
“I don’t know if they were doing that before but they are getting here early with me,” Wilson said. “And not only that but after practice, we’re getting extra work too. Running and conditioning to make sure we are ready for August 30th and every game after that. That’s why I said, ‘I love these dudes’ because it’s like high school. Everyone is on board.”
It wasn’t the first time that Wilson mentioned a high school feeling. There is a chemistry that appears to have developed among the secondary with players that Wilson feels are just like him.
“It’s going to translate to the field so good. Because when it gets loud, it gets loud. You need to use hand signals and you could give somebody a look like, ‘You got me in the post?’ And he’s got to know to get me in the post. Me and K.J. (Kirkland) have done that a couple of times. We have the chemistry down pat and it’s only day two.”
While cornerback was not considered a huge need prior to the spring, the results of spring practice encouraged Florida State to go and find an experienced boundary corner in the portal. Wilson’s prior experience in a Tony White defense and his prior desire to be a Seminole out of Kissimmee (Fla.) Osceola High School made it a near perfect match.
“He is all football,” White said of Wilson. “He cares about his teammates, he loves Florida State. He is the first one in, last one out kind of guy. He is still the same young man that he was at Syracuse. He added some pounds, his hair grew out, he’s a little uglier. But he is still a guy who is all football, all family, all brotherhood — all everything that there is about the process.”
“He has a pro mindset. He’s a film junky, he lives in the building, he takes care of his body, he understands route concepts and he is a vocal leader when he has to (be),” defensive backs coach Patrick Surtain added. “He brings maturity to the DB room. I think guys recognize that.”
In talks with the coaching staff, Wilson has been described to the Osceola as a player that is incredibly instinctual. Some players have a tendency to overthink their choices out of fear of making the wrong play but Wilson does not have that chink in the armor. Mistakes will happen but it enables him to be a ballhawk and playmaker.
“I like everything. You can put me anywhere - you can put all the guys anywhere with this defense,” Wilson said when asked about White’s defense. “Everyone is a corner, everyone is a safety, everyone is a rover. The main thing is run and hit. Everyone fill in for each other by running and hitting. Obviously we can all cover; we are all dogs. Everyone is interchangeable and that’s what I like about it.”
Wilson has entered a defensive back room that produced three out of Florida State’s four interceptions last season and is looking to rebound from a down year. It hasn’t taken long for the room to bond. Wilson said that the entire room does almost every activity together and they feel like people he has known his entire life.
“Everybody that has come in and the people that were here last year too understand that last year wasn’t the best year. They have also stepped up their leadership so we are just bouncing ideas off each other and bouncing off of accountability. We are going to see where this ship takes us.”
