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Brian Kelly: ‘Disappointing’ Kyren Williams isn’t up for Doak Walker Award

The Doak Walker Award, given annually to the best running back in college football, announced 10 semifinalists this week. Notre Dame junior Kyren Williams wasn't one of them — much to the chagrin of head coach Brian Kelly.

“Certainly very surprising,” Kelly said.

But maybe not all too surprising at the same time.

“The postseason awards have been, for me, over the past five, six years going all the way back to Quenton Nelson and the Outland Trophy, have been a myriad of confusing and really not sure what the criteria is anymore,” Kelly said.

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Kelly's players have taken home some hardware during his 12-year tenure in South Bend. Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah won the Butkus Award as the nation's best linebacker last year. Jaylon Smith won the Butkus Award in 2015. Drue Tranquill won the Wuerffel Trophy in 2018.

Manti Te'o took home seven individual awards in 2012. Tyler Eifert won the Mackey Trophy as the best tight end in college football that year, too, and Kelly himself won the Home Depot Award as the sport's top coach.

Still, Kelly feels Notre Dame players have been slighted a bit when it's time to draft up lists of semifinalists and finalists for postseason awards.

“I’m very respectful for all of those who have been awarded these trophies and those who have been nominated for them,” Kelly said. “Our players have seemed to have not been significant in these for some reasons.

“You look at the schedule that we play, the competition that we play each and every week, that doesn’t seem to be a factor. It seems that stats are very, very important. It is what it is. It’s disappointing.”

Statistics certainly are important. Nine of the 10 semifinalists have at least 1,000 rushing yards this season. The only one who does not, Kansas State's Deuce Vaughn, has 987. Williams has 875.

Williams’ case was hampered by a slow start. He didn’t eclipser 100 rushing yards in a single game until Oct. 23 against USC. He had three games of less than 50 rushing yards in the first five games of the season.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish football junior running back Kyren Williams
Notre Dame running back Kyren Williams is not one of 10 semifinalists for the Doak Walker Award. (Kenneth Martin/BGI)

Notre Dame’s offensive line struggled to create running room for Williams early on. He still had a highlight reel 51-yard touchdown against Purdue Sept. 18. The highlight reels have been much more frequent as the offensive line has improved recently.

Williams had one of the best runs in college football this season on his 91-yard touchdown against North Carolina. He's had many “how did he do that?” plays in recent weeks. It’s no wonder he’s a finalist for the Paul Hornung Award, which goes to the most versatile player in college football.

As for the Doak Walker? Kelly is still waiting for that kind of recognition.

“I’m just not a big believer in how you can not look at the entirety of your work,” Kelly said. “Who we play, how we play, the consistency of our performance over the longevity and these guys not be up on these award lists. We’ll just keep playing and look for the team award at the end.”

2021 Doak Walker Award Semifinalists 

Tyler Allgeier, BYU

Tyler Badie, Missouri

Breece Hall, Iowa State

TreVeyon Henderson, Ohio State

Sincere McCormick, UTSA

Bijan Robinson, Texas

Abram Smith, Baylor

Sean Tucker, Syracuse

Deuce Vaughn, Kansas State

Kenneth Walker III, Michigan State

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