Alabama's Ryan Williams has right mindset for another monster season

Ryan Williams had a tremendous freshman season for the Alabama Crimson Tide. In fact, had it not been for Ohio State freshman wideout Jeremiah Smith, there's a case to be made that Williams had the greatest freshman season in the history of college football.

There is no world in which Smith's season at OSU can be denied, but that doesn't mean that what Williams did at Alabama was anything but incredible.

The 6-foot-1, 165-pound receiver from Saraland, Alabama, caught 48 passes for 865 yards and eight touchdowns as a freshman, averaging 18 yards per catch.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about those numbers is that Williams was only 17 when he made his first start. He's still a teenager, but he already plays football like a young man who is destined to be a star in the NFL as well.

But in the here and now, there's his sophomore season to consider. Some may find it hard to explode as he did as a freshman and then follow that up with an equal, if not better, campaign, but Williams recently revealed that he feels no pressure.

“(It’s) not really pressure, because pressure is privilege,” Williams said at Alabama's media day, according to Alex Byington of On3. “But, you know, it’s just a matter of understanding your freshman year. There’s a lot of kids, like … Jeremiah Smith of Ohio State went through his entire freshman year and they won a natty (national championship) as a student-athlete.

“So it’s just balancing out the student-athlete life, all the NIL, just understanding and getting a rhythm (with) it. Now that I went through an entire year, I definitely have a way better grasp of it.”

If Williams now has a firm grasp and comfort level as a college football star, he will be a scary player for SEC teams to try to stop in 2025. 

Perhaps the biggest question regarding his sophomore season has nothing to do with him, and that's the question of Alabama's quarterback. Right now, redshirt junior Ty Simpson seems to be the likely starter, but he's never thrown a touchdown as a college football quarterback and only has 50 career passing attempts to his name.

That's the one thing Williams can't control. Everything else, though, should be taken care of by his massive talent and the correct mindset heading into 2025. 

There's always going to be pressure, and there's always going to be stress. This is Alabama football we're talking about.

Being able to take that pressure and turn it into a positive is what separates the winners from everyone else in college football.