CLEMSON, S.C. -- Most days last spring, Mike Williams would get that familiar itch, that innate need to dance across yard markers and twist his 6-foot-3 frame in impossible directions and stretch his arms high into the air until he felt the thwack of the football against his hands the way he had 79 times during his Clemson career. So he’d shoot off a text to his quarterback, Deshaun Watson, with a simple request: Want to go play catch?

The exercise is rote now, and Williams never needs to beg for balls to be thrown his way. He has 84 receptions this season and is poised to become the first receiver taken in the NFL draft. But there’s still something magical about getting to do the thing that comes most naturally to him. A year after a terrifying neck injury cost him his shot at playoff glory, he’s been given a second chance.

“This is the part I missed the most last year,” Williams said.

The injury happened on a touchdown grab in Clemson’s 2015 opener. Williams made the catch, was pushed from behind, and collided with the goal post in the back of the end zone.

Williams downplays the injury now, but in the moment, nothing was certain. The worst of it, it turned out, was that his season was over.

To be sure, Williams considers himself lucky. But just as certainly, he resents the time he missed.

“He’s a simple guy,” coach Dabo Swinney said. “That’s just how he grew up. He lives out on the north 40 with a bunch of land and not a lot to do. He’s one of those guys that was always playing, always either shooting hoops or throwing the ball.”

Taking away football wasn’t just a blow to his career. Football was Williams’ life. And while his team marched through an undefeated regular season, he wore a neck brace that limited his movement and annoyed him constantly.

By the time Clemson’s playoff berth was secured last season, Williams’ fate was again in question. Might he be able to play? His doctor offered Williams some hope, but as much as Williams wanted to join his team for the playoff, he knew he wasn’t ready.

“I was hearing a little from the doctors that I visited that they could put me in a situation where I could play in the playoff, but I said I didn’t want to do that,” Williams said. “If it was something else, I probably would’ve been out there then. But my neck, I didn’t want to.”

Instead, Williams watched Clemson knock off Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, and then fall just shy of a championship against Alabama. He didn’t regret his decision to sit out, but he also knew he might’ve made enough of a difference to put the Tigers over the top.

“That was tough on Mike to not be able to participate, knowing he could’ve helped,” Swinney said.

And so the work began almost immediately after the 2015 season ended. The texts to Watson, the extra work after practices in the spring, the early mornings in the weight room. Williams had to make up for lost time, but more than anything, he wanted another chance at the playoff.

“It’s all the hard work he put in that no one saw,” Watson said.

What Swinney did see was the ferocity with which Williams returned to the field.

“I remember watching him dive for his first ball,” Swinney said.

Williams laid out for the catch, tumbled hard to the ground, rolled over a few times and popped right back up.

“Everyone just held their breath,” Swinney said, but Williams was fine.

From there, it’s been as if the injury never happened. Williams totaled 1,171 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2016 -- both good for second in the ACC. He was the star of Clemson’s receiving corps, somehow markedly better than he’d been in 2014 despite the year away. He was Watson’s favorite target, racing past defenders on deep balls and going up over corners on jump balls. And on the play perhaps most indicative of Williams’ drive, he literally carried a South Carolina defender on his back into the end zone.

He’s again an All-ACC receiver, and he's a near certainty to be a first-round NFL draft pick.

“It’s a little adversity that set him back, but he came back even stronger,” Watson said. “He’s made a huge impact for this team.”

It’s a long way from playing catch with Watson on the practice fields on chilly winter mornings, but Williams isn’t concerned with how much of the journey he’s finished.

A year ago, Williams was a spectator. Now, he can be the difference as Clemson takes on Ohio State in a College Football Playoff semifinal at the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl. This is what he missed, what he worked to recover.

If the injury hadn’t happened, who knows how things might’ve turned out. Williams might be playing on Sundays already, and the Tigers might be prepping for some second-tier bowl game.

“Things happen for a reason,” Williams said.

It’s a funny thing when the one thing that had always been there is taken away. Williams insists he doesn’t want to look at things that way, doesn’t like considering what might’ve been. But Swinney sees it. He sees it in all those little moments when Williams didn’t think anyone else was watching, all those texts to his QB asking for a few more chances to stretch his legs.

“His level of appreciation of just being able to practice, being able to work at it, it’s just way higher than it was last year,” Swinney said. “He’s like a kid running around out there.”