What’s Next For ‘Hungry’ Notre Dame Football Running Back Kyren Williams?
Kyren Williams stopped a reporter in his tracks last week.
The reporter prefaced a question to the Notre Dame junior running back by recapping — or attempting to recap — Williams’ freshman season.
“You got on the field against Louisville, and then, you know …”
“Nothing,” Williams said, bluntly. “I dropped an open pass. You can tell it how it is.”
True Irish fans remember the play. Williams certainly does. He flat-out dropped a wide-open screen pass in Notre Dame’s 2019 season opener. He had four late-game carries in Week 2 before shutting it down and receiving a redshirt.
Just like that, his season was essentially over.
A more refined diet and a refocused mental approach in 2020 led to his breakout sophomore season. He ran for 1,125 yards and 13 touchdowns. Now he’s a Doak Walker Award candidate and could be one of the best running backs in all of college football.
Everything he has accomplished and is yet to add to his resume all goes back to that September night in Louisville.
“It was sickening,” Williams said. “After I dropped that pass, it was probably the worst night of my life. I didn’t go to sleep. It was that stress. That mental factor of me thinking, ‘Oh my gosh. I dropped this first pass. I’m never going to play college football again.’”
Williams said he felt like he lived life “on edge” the rest of his freshman year. Every slight slip up felt like the end of his career. He didn’t think he’d ever shed the stigma that was automatically associated with him the moment that ball hit the turf.
Of course, he was wrong. But only because he has worked so tirelessly since then. And it’s still that way. Williams is a team captain. He’s almost assuredly going to get a serious look from NFL teams prior to the 2022 draft. He’s got everything going for him.
But everything isn’t enough.
“He’s a hungry dude, man,” Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees said. “You can sense it the minute you talk to him. He wants more. He wants to continue to have other parts of the offense be something he can own.”
That includes lining up as a wide receiver in empty formations, or even in sets with sophomore running back Chris Tyree in the backfield and Williams split out wide to give opposing defenses two home-run hitting running backs to worry about at the same time.
Williams caught 35 passes for 313 yards and a touchdown last year. Only two Notre Dame players had more receptions. Only four recorded more yards. Williams still wants to add to those totals. Williams played slot receiver in high school until he was a junior, after all.
“That’s what I pride myself on, being so versatile that it’s going to be hard covering me wherever I’m at — outside, in the slot or out of the backfield,” Williams said.
“We’re going to continue to make sure there are ways defenses can’t focus on him,” Rees added. “That’s something he’s always striving to have, and he’s pushed himself to earn those roles.”
Oh, the irony. The player who thought he’d never touch a football in a collegiate game again after dropping one in his first opportunity to get his hands on it now has the chance to be his offense’s most dynamic player.
That’s what happens when talent and hard work combine with fuel from a mishap put well in the past.
“Redshirting was my biggest blessing in disguise,” Williams said. “It humbled me. It let me step back away from football and just breathe and be a regular person, who I am. And that’s what made me also flip my mind switch because I knew I didn’t want to be on the bench anymore. I just had to get to where I wanted to be by doing what I had to do.”
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