Five star true freshman Alabama wide receiver Ryan Williams is putting together an unfathomable 2024 season through four games. After annihilating Georgia’s vaunted defensive secondary (one of the best in the nation) for six catches, 177 yards, and a touchdown this week, Bulldogs’ head coach Kirby Smart couldn’t help but be impressed.
When asked about Ryan Williams on his SEC conference media availability call this week Kirby Smart raved about the unique skills that make him so unstoppable:
“I think it’s his ability. I mean, I think it’s his speed, his ball skills, that make him unique. Not just his footwork. I call it suddenness, twitch quickness. We always refer to it as initial quickness. He has elite initial quickness, but that’s not I mean, feet are a part of that, but that’s not the only part that makes him special.”
Ryan Williams’ unbelievable quick twitch suddenness was on full display throughout last week’s matchup on every single play he made. Early on in the game Williams’ unreal suddenness and twitchy burst was featured multiple times on the same play in different ways.
His quick sprint off the line got his defender leaning, looking for a deep route. Then after he stopped on a dime, Williams snagged the catch, took a quick a hop step, planted and left the defender in his dust on a move that looked like it belongs in the NBA (as you can see below).
It’s just impossible to defend a wide receiver that so easily creates separation before and after the catch on a route that should be extremely simple.
The play that displayed every single skill a wide receiver could possibly possess all in one snap was Williams’ 75-yard touchdown to take the lead late in the fourth quarter (as you can see in SportsCenters’ post here).
Williams hit the accelerator to the outside. He stacked his defender to establish position. He then leaped to make a wild adjustment at the point of catch. Then Williams hit top speed in just a few steps, made two defenders miss with one juke, and got back to full speed to burn two more defenders on his way to the end zone for six. The 17-year-old called “game” with just two minutes to go in what was ultimately one of best SEC rivalry matchups in the history of college football.
Kirby continued heaping praise upon Williams and his special skills:
“It’s a combination of, like, guys have great ball skills and sometimes they have great quickness, but they don’t have great long speed. When you combine his track speed with initial quickness and ball skills, you get a really special player, which [Ryan Williams] is.”
Kirby Smart nailed it. Many players have one or two skills that set them apart. Ryan Williams has every single skill imaginable for a wide receiver to master and he should still be in high school. If and when Alabama faces off against Georgia again the Bulldogs will have learned a thing or two on how to defend Williams, but the truth is that he might just already be too good to stop.
Thanks to Williams’ truly unique skills for a player of his young age he’s on pace to post the most impressive true freshman season of all time for a wide receiver. He’s now on a 13-game pace of more than 1500 receiving yards and 16+ touchdowns. Will anyone be able to stop Alabama’s all-time great freshman? It doesn’t look like that’s anywhere close to possible.
