Kyren Williams’ latest slippery run delivers knockout blow: ‘He’s insane’
Avery Davis caught himself in a moment of fandom.
For a split second, the fifth-year senior wide receiver felt like one of the 74,341 folks in the Notre Dame Stadium stands, staring in amazement as junior running back Kyren Williams neared the end zone on a run that initially appeared to be a nondescript 3- or 4-yard gain.
Late in the fourth quarter, with Notre Dame trying to preserve a seven-point lead over Purdue, Williams took a handoff on an inside zone run play and burst into the designed gap on the left side. Purdue linebacker Jaylan Alexander, in ideal position to make a tackle, hit him about 3 yards past the line of scrimmage.
But Williams never went down. His legs kept churning and kept powering until he shed Alexander and jetted into the open field. A fumble-hungry linebacker took a swing at the ball from behind and missed. Davis ran downfield with Williams, still in awe.
Williams reached the end zone 51 yards later, scoring the final touchdown in a 27-13 Irish win over the Boilermakers and adding the latest highlight to a long reel of turning dead plays into explosive ones.
“He’s insane,” Davis said. “It’s his ability to maneuver through tight spaces, to make people miss and strength to stay up,” Davis said. “I was right there running next to him and had the best view. It was incredible. I was watching him for a second and forgot I had to block for him. He’s just so entertaining.”
Davis threw a shoulder into Purdue’s last trailing defender just before the goal line, sealing Williams’ path into the end zone. All told, Williams ran out of one tackle, withstood a forced fumble attempt and spun a safety around when he changed course.
To his teammates, it’s hardly a surprise anymore.
“Kyren is nasty,” fifth-year senior defensive end Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa said. “He’s tough. What you see on the field, he does in practice.”
Williams would have been fine with the short gain. Notre Dame began a possession at its own 49-yard line with 6:16 left in the game, leading 20-13 and hoping to drip as much time as possible off the clock before adding points and putting Purdue in a two-score hole. Instead, Williams crossed the goal line 11 seconds later.
Not a bad alternative.
“I was really just trying to get yards and milk the clock, run the ball until we scored,” Williams said. “But it happened the first play. Plays like that happen. When it’s your time, when it’s called for you, you have to make a play. That was my big emphasis this week, running through tackles, because I don’t think I did that well enough last week [against Toledo].”
Williams, in fact, found himself in the same spot against the Rockets, carrying the load on what was supposed to be a time-killing drive to seal a win.
Notre Dame was inside the Toledo 40-yard line with less than four minutes to go, leading 24-22 and hoping to add points. Williams’ job was to shed tackles, stay in bounds and hold onto the ball.
He did the first two. Not the third. His fumble with 3:26 left set up Toledo’s go-ahead touchdown. Notre Dame came back to win, but it didn’t eradicate Williams’ sour feeling about his role in what was nearly a disastrous loss.
“We got a win, but it was a win I could have taken away from the team by fumbling the ball,” Williams said. “I was mad at myself, upset at myself. I had to flip that switch if I didn’t want that to repeat this week.”
Notre Dame put him right back in an identical situation a week later, its trust in him not at all shaken. His confidence in himself never wavered either.
“These are the games where you come back and really prove who you are as a player, as a leader, as a person,” Williams said. “For me, being able to bounce back is big.”
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