95 Days Until Pitt Football: Mick Williams

If you spend any time on Twitter, you no doubt have seen people posting certain Pitt players wearing uniform numbers that correspond with the number of days left until the football season kicks off. Jim did it last year and this year, Pat Narduzzi has been doing it.

I know we have a lot of younger readers here and also some folks that may not have spent their entire lives following Pitt sports. For that reason, I thought it would be cool to not only do the countdown here, but also give a brief writeup on the player to potentially help fans connect a little more with some of the all-time greats.

Quick disclaimer - this isn't necessarily about picking the best player for each number. Not only is that disputable in many instances, but it's not really the point of the exercise. So don't be offended if your favorite player doesn't make the list here. I'll probably mirror Narduzzi's list for the most part but may go off the board in a few instances.

These will also be brief, folks. It's the offseason and we all use this time to wind down a bit. These won't be theses or anything, but we'll cobble together a few facts for each guy.

Finally, feel free to add on to a player's accomplishments in the comments section. Some I'll leave out due to space/time and some I may not even know about. But this will be a good learning exercise for all of us.

Continuing our countdown today is another defensive lineman from recent years - Mick Williams.

Mick was a pretty good player during his tenure at Pitt and started the bulk of three seasons for the Panthers from 2007-2009. He started to make solid progress in 2008 when he was named the Ed Conway Award winner as the most improved defensive player in spring camp in advance of his junior year. In 2009, he was the Co-Big East Defensive Player of the Year with fellow Pitt defensive lineman Greg Romeus.

After college, he tried his hand in the NFL. The New York Jets briefly signed him as an undrafted free agent, but he didn't stick there. The Bears then took a chance on him, signing him to a two-year deal but he was cut before getting onto the field. In 2011, he got into some off-field trouble and never made it into an NFL game after that, though he did go to the CFL in 2012.

Be sure to join Cardiac Hill's Facebook page and follow us on Twitter@PittPantherBlog for our regular updates on Pitt athletics. Follow the author and founder/editor @AnsonWhaley.