‘We kind of stumbled into it.’ – Alabama star wideout’s dominance almost never happened
A man amongst boys.
Except that man is 17-year-old Ryan Williams and those boys are SEC defenses.
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He is terrorizing the best conference in college football, when he really should still be terrorizing the opponents of Saraland High School in Mobile, Alabama.
Technically, he still is terrorizing defensive backs in the state of Alabama, it’s just been taking place in Tuscaloosa at Bryant-Denny Stadium instead of Spartan Stadium in Mobile.
Bad news for Alabama’s opponents, but great news for Saraland’s.
Williams decided to forego his senior year of high school to join Jalen Milroe and first year head coach, Karen DeBoer, in Tuscaloosa this season and the results for the true freshman have been stunning.
He leads the seventh-ranked Crimson Tide with 23 catches for 576 yards and six touchdowns. His 25-yard average on receptions leads the entire FBS.
Again, at only 17-years-old.
During his time at Saraland, Williams, the only two-time Mr. Football in Alabama history, recorded more than 4,400 yards of total offense, scoring 76 touchdowns in 39 games — 47 receiving, 24 rushing, 1 passing and 4 on punt and kick returns.
Safe to say he had accomplished everything there was at the high school level. He didn’t need a senior year.
The craziest part of Williams story might not even be that he’s dominating the SEC before he’s of legal age, but the fact that he ended up playing wide receiver by total chance.
Williams was originally set to play quarterback his freshman year at Saraland, but that all changed when assistant coach Brett Boutwell had spotted William running routes and catching passes one day after practice from his office window.
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The rest was history.
“Coach Boutwell looked out there and said, ‘Hey, we need to give Ryan a shot’,” Saraland High coach Jeff Kelly told ESPN.
“He had a natural something special to him. He was 14 years old and playing against 17 and 18-year-olds. By the second half of the season and the playoffs, he was making some big plays.
“If they didn’t stay after practice that day and get those extra reps, he might have been a ninth-grade quarterback that year. I don’t know. We kind of stumbled into it.”
Stumbling into one of the best high school receivers of all-time is quite lucky.
What isn’t luck, is Williams now being one of the best college wide receivers in the country before he is even allowed to vote.
That’s all the hard work he’s put in, even at such a young age.
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“We knew he was more elite than all the high school players he was going against,” Barnett said.
“He gets to the [college] level, and you think it might even out a little bit, especially at his age. Watching him doing the same things he was doing against high school kids, at 17, really amazes me.”
For Williams it hasn’t evened out… not even a little bit.
