STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 1, 2025

CJ Williams

Postgame Media Conference

Pitt 35, Stanford 20

Q. Just walk us through that first touchdown you got, kind of a bobbled situation. You held on to it and scored. What did you see in that sequence there?

CJ WILLIAMS: Yeah, 3rd down, I think we all kind of know Ben trusts me a lot on 3rd down, even when there may be bracket coverage or cover-two man, and he threw a ball that the DB obviously played pretty well.

He had great leverage, I think, on the play. He tipped it in the air. I guess kind of when the football gods are on your side a little bit, the play tends to go your way, so it bounced into my hands. I saw the end zone, so I just went. People said I had pretty good speed on that right there.

Obviously a crazy touchdown; I've never seen that before. It was just good football all the way around. Great protection by the line, as well.

Q. Coach just mentioned the resilience of this team. Obviously you guys go down, but to be able to have that two-minute drill, get the touchdown, and you were on the end of it, just talk about the resilience of this team being able to get that touchdown late?

CJ WILLIAMS: Yeah, if there's anything I know about these guys in this locker room in just the short amount of time I've been here is these guys, they've been through a lot, and with that, they've never flinched. They all came back, obviously, this season ready to bring Stanford to a new level to elevate the program in better days than probably they've seen in the past.

That just translates to the field, I think, every time we go out there and play, every time we come out and practice. This week in practice, specifically on Tuesday or might have been Wednesday because Tuesday we had a great practice, Wednesday we were just all over the place, offensively, defensively, and Coach Reich called it up, and in the practice he told us we've got to straighten it out. It was a bad practice. He could have restarted it and we all would have understood. But we went to the next period, and it was lights out from both sides competing at a high level.

So I think that just goes to show a little bit of the resilience that comes out in that locker room and every single room that's there.

Q. Talk about what you saw from Brown late in the game. Obviously must have been fun for you to catch a touchdown given your relationship going back to Mater Dei, but talk about what you've seen from him growth-wise.

CJ WILLIAMS: Yeah, it's been probably a while since I played with Elijah. I played with him until my senior year, his sophomore year of high school, and I came back here to Stanford, very excited to play with him if given the opportunity, of course, and then Ben came in and ended up being named the starter. I'm so excited to play with Ben and very, very grateful to play with Ben, as well.

But even just in my short time being back with Elijah, I think he's matured as a man, as a football player. Like he makes really good reads, and it's not that he didn't before, but Elijah's thing is that his timing and his ability to go and place the ball where he wants to is at a high level, and I think that just showed on that last drive there. I've only seen that elevate in my time here.

He did a really good job of grasping this offense, like all the quarterbacks did when Coach Reich came in, because we installed a whole new offense, and he's done a really, really good job so far. And you love to see that of a redshirt sophomore or just a sophomore in general.

Elijah is a younger kid that I know everyone is really, really excited about. I'm excited to see him grow, as well, as I move on.

Q. You've had a lot of good games this year, but where would you rank this up?

CJ WILLIAMS: It's up there for sure. Probably not as good as that Florida State game where I probably got less yards, but we came out with a win, right? San Jose State, pretty dang close in yards, but we came out with a win, no touchdown, but still, that game is over because we won.

That's what it's about, right, winning football games. You guys know my goals. I want to play football as long as possible with these guys. I love these guys. I really love being here. I love playing for Mr. Luck and Coach Reich, Coach Osborne.

So playing for wins is probably above, so there's three games, even that Boston College game, I caught one ball for three yards, had the offensive pass interference on the push-off, which was my fault, of course. That game ranks above these because we won the football game, and wins feel a lot better than losses, of course.

Q. I'm curious your thoughts on Sam Roush and what he gave you guys today.

CJ WILLIAMS: Yeah, Sam is our leader. He's the guy that we look to. He breaks in the locker room. He's the leader of the offense, I think the tight end group as a whole. Every meeting we have, every team meeting, the tight end whole group sitting in the front of the room.

Sam is an elite player. He knows that. Obviously there's some plays that I think I could have -- I wish I could have back, he wished he could have back, because us being pretty focal points of the offense, we're expected to make those plays and help Ben out and bail him out of situations when we get back in 3rd down.

I know he's going to make it in the future. I know he's going to continue to grow and be better this week in practice, and that's all you can ask for out of your leader because at the end of the day, a leader really does -- you don't need to tell him he just messed up. You don't need to tell him that he dropped the football. He knows. He's probably harder on himself at that moment in time than I would be or his coach would be. He knows, and he's going to come back even stronger for these last three games of the season, hopefully four games if given the opportunity.

Q. There's a famous saying that you win or you learn. Obviously you guys didn't win today, but I know you learned a bunch. Just what specifically?

CJ WILLIAMS: Yeah, right? I love the win, you learn, you win, you grow. We're growing. Not only as football players, not only just in the classroom and things like that, we're growing as men with Coach Reich here.

We're going through obviously hard moments and really, really high moments, and all it's about is not going too high with the highs and too low with the lows. We've still got to come in on Sunday no matter what the result was today and give it our 100 percent. So I think I've learned to maintain those highs and maintain those lows.

I think the purest sense of camaraderie, the purest sense of just love in that locker room is something that maybe I didn't necessarily see at previous schools, but I'm glad I got to experience it here, even through the tough times.