When he was by himself, and no one was watching, Mike Williams would take off his neck brace and would start working out. The Clemson wide receiver was determined to get himself back on the field in 2016 after he broke a small bone in his neck that left him on the sideline for the entire 2015 season.

“I was taking my neck brace off to be honest when I wasn’t supposed to,” the All-ACC wideout said. “I was just doing pushups, doing sit ups, doing neck rotations just trying to get my neck right. So, I mean I was basically just trying to stay in shape to prepare for this opportunity.”

When he got back this season, Williams made up for lost time and then some. Heading into the second-ranked Tigers’ Fiesta Bowl matchup on New Year’s Eve against No. 3 Ohio State, the junior leads the team with 84 catches for a team-high 1,171 yards and a team-high 10 touchdown receptions.

Five times this year, the 6-foot-3, 225-pound receiver went over the century mark in terms of yards, and two different times he caught at least 12 passes in a game. His best game came against Pitt when he hauled in a career-high 15 passes for a career-high 202 yards.

Williams also caught 12 passes for 146 yards against NC State, had 149 receiving yards against Auburn on nine catches, and 106 yards against Syracuse.

However, the game and moment everyone remembers is when he carried a South Carolina defender on his back into the end zone during the Tigers’ 56-7 victory over the Gamecocks. It was one of his record three touchdown receptions that night as he finished the game with six catches for 100 yards.

“I just use my size to my advantage,” Williams said.

“I’ve always been using that since high school,” he continued. “I was a freshman in high school so I mean you see those smaller DB’s trying to come up and guard you. I would just tell Deshaun (Watson), ‘Put it up there I’ll go get it.’”

Williams said his relationship with Watson grew from the moment Watson got on campus.

“We got in the indoor and started throwing a lot of balls, running a lot of routes and I mean ever since then you know the connection was always there,” Williams said. “His freshman year, while he was healthy, it showed. I mean he’s a great quarterback.

“Every good wide receiver needs a good quarterback so I mean I feel like that helps us out a lot. As a wide receiver group just having that guy back there throwing us the ball is big.”

Williams said he knew from Day One, there was something different with Watson than the other quarterbacks.

“I was always hearing from the other quarterbacks that he was going to be special, but I was like, ‘Alright, let me see it for myself,’” Williams said. “And the first day he started throwing us the ball he was catching on real fast to the routes and he was catching on real fast to the plays. So I was like, ‘He’s going to be special.’”

Williams isn’t too bad himself.

“Oh I’ve gotten better in all parts of my game,” he said. “Just running routes, blocking, defenses, just catching deep balls, just everything. That was my goal just to get better at every part of my game.”