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Link: RB De'Antwan Williams Update

Re: De'Antwan Williams Rivals 250 RB

kinda looks like maurice jones-drew. very short but built. Runs down hill and has a nack for bouncing off tackles...

Also... on film it doesn't look like he has ELITE speed, but he's as fast as he needs to be. There are several long touchdown runs where a guy takes the angle, and it looks like he's gonna make the tackle. He just falls a few feet short. This kid looks good on film. power and big play ability. Good stiff arm.

Theres a particularly sweet play on the rivals film where he's the punter... bad snap over his head and he chases the ball down and takes it to the house. haha. I'd say it was a good 88-90 yard run from the spot he picked up the ball.
 
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Re: De'Antwan Williams Rivals 250 RB

Agree with the Maurice Jones Drew comparison. I also think we need to get away from the scat backs being a primary component of our running game. Especially when there are RB's now days that are bigger, stronger and aren't that much slower that it much matters.

Come the late third quarter and fourth a bigger runner (not meaning 225lb's plus but also not 185lbs soaking wet either) is much much harder to bring down.
 
Re: De'Antwan Williams Rivals 250 RB

Great looking prospect. If CNS likes him, who am I to disagree. :wink: I think we make too much of size & measurables. Anyone in his/her right mind would love to have a Shaun Alexander, Bo Jackson, or Herschel Walker in their backfield, but as we all know there have been some great RB's that DIDN'T have the size, or speed..............they "only" had heart & desire...........and plenty of it. My database is corrupted with age, but players like Johnny Musso, Shaud Williams, come to mind, just to name a couple (mostly 'cause that's all I can dredge up right now :p_eyes:) but I'm sure there are hundreds more.

Ideally, I'd have to agree with 'buzzard, but I'd also have to say some of the great ones don't always look the part.
 
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Re: De'Antwan Williams Rivals 250 RB

5'7", 207, 4.5.......Should be like a bowling ball hitting the line. With that much weight and speed on a short frame it will be like tackling a howitzer.:wink:

Looks like he could be a "good'un".
 
Re: De'Antwan Williams Rivals 250 RB

Bamabuzzard said:
Agree with the Maurice Jones Drew comparison. I also think we need to get away from the scat backs being a primary component of our running game. Especially when there are RB's now days that are bigger, stronger and aren't that much slower that it much matters.

Come the late third quarter and fourth a bigger runner (not meaning 225lb's plus but also not 185lbs soaking wet either) is much much harder to bring down.
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Grant will most likely be our last of this type of back, at least as long as CNS is here. It's not hard to figure out what kind of back Coach Saban prefers.
 
Re: De'Antwan Williams Rivals 250 RB

BEATtutorsee said:
Grant will most likely be our last of this type of back, at least as long as CNS is here. It's not hard to figure out what kind of back Coach Saban prefers.
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Dunno about that. CNS, based on his time at LSU, seems to prefer to keep a "scat" type back in the mix. I think he prefers to use different style backs in a game (to keep the defense, and more importantly the DC, from keying on one running style?). JOMO.
 
Re: De'Antwan Williams Rivals 250 RB

Crimson Hawk said:
Dunno about that. CNS, based on his time at LSU, seems to prefer to keep a "scat" type back in the mix. I think he prefers to use different style backs in a game (to keep the defense, and more importantly the DC, from keying on one running style?). JOMO.
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I agree that we will probably keep a smaller "scat back" type of runner on the team. But I do not forsee us having one of these types of backs competing for the majority of the snaps like Grant is currently doing. Scat backs are great to have when your bigger backs don't have that element of quickness but in today's game you're seeing more and more players have the combination of size, power, speed and quickness. Mark Ingram comes to mind.
 
Re: De'Antwan Williams Rivals 250 RB

Crimson Hawk said:
Dunno about that. CNS, based on his time at LSU, seems to prefer to keep a "scat" type back in the mix. I think he prefers to use different style backs in a game (to keep the defense, and more importantly the DC, from keying on one running style?). JOMO.
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Well I guess it depends on one's definition of a scat type RB. IMO we don't seem to be recruiting many of those now-a-days. Most all of the backs we're recruiting now seem to be connected by at least one common thread, and that's the ability to run between the tackles and pick up tough yardage. Some are more of a mixture than others but for the most part I see very few if any that we're recruiting now that I would call a scat RB. If size alone were the only qualification then yeah I could see where one could label a few as scat RBs, but running style has more to do with it than size IMHO and I just don't see many of our recruits fitting the bill. JOMO.
 
Re: De'Antwan Williams Rivals 250 RB

Right now it looks like Trent Richardson and De'Antwan Williams are the top two RB prospects for Alabama.

In the latest Bama Mag article on De'Antwan Williams he does not name any favorites. He did say that he is going to take an unofficial visit to Alabama on July 20th and from his remarks it appears that he has a strong interest in Alabama.

Bama Mag: De'Antwan Williams Profile
 
Re: De'Antwan Williams Rivals 250 RB

Bamabuzzard said:
I agree that we will probably keep a smaller "scat back" type of runner on the team. But I do not forsee us having one of these types of backs competing for the majority of the snaps like Grant is currently doing. Scat backs are great to have when your bigger backs don't have that element of quickness but in today's game you're seeing more and more players have the combination of size, power, speed and quickness. Mark Ingram comes to mind.
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I would guess that will depend on the RB's abilities. I agree with what you and BEATutorsee are saying. I think the bigger/faster/stronger RB is the wave of the future, but I also believe that size alone is not necessarily the answer. History is littered with the names of great RBs that didn't possess great size. Walter Payton comes to mind. :)
 
There was a kid from Town Creek years ago that was about this kid's size and I can't remember his name. Short but stout. He didn't play alot until his senior year and it seemed like he would be brought into a game to pound the defense. Why am I drawing a blank on his name?!?!?!?!?!

If this kid can put on about 15-20 lbs, he could be that same type back.
 
Re: De'Antwan Williams Rivals 250 RB

Crimson Hawk said:
I would guess that will depend on the RB's abilities. I agree with what you and BEATutorsee are saying. I think the bigger/faster/stronger RB is the wave of the future, but I also believe that size alone is not necessarily the answer. History is littered with the names of great RBs that didn't possess great size. Walter Payton comes to mind. :)
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I agree size by itself is not THE answer. However for every "undersized" running back that beats the odds there are 100's to 1,000's of rb's coming out of HS and who are in college that don't. So the odds of getting an "undersized" rb that runs like a bigger back are not very good.

Backs that are between 205 lbs and 225 lbs seem to be the ideal back for the types of offenses being ran today in college football. They are big enough to run in between the tackles and still possess enough speed and quickness to get to the corners. But in the SEC a team BETTER not have a "scat back" type rb as their primary rb because the odds of them being successful drop dramatically. That is why I think it is imperative that either UpChurch, Coffee or Matchett and Ingram step it up this season. If we have to rely on Grant as our primary "yardage getter" our running game might suffer again. Because an SEC OL (no matter how "good" they are) cannot be expected to open mack truck size holes for backs to run through.
 
Because an SEC OL (no matter how "good" they are) cannot be expected to open mack truck size holes for backs to run through.
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Ha! It's been a long time since we've been able to open a hole big enough for a small rat to squeeze through!

This leads to a question that maybe some of the more knowledgeable can answer. How much of a RB's success is size/ability, and how much depends on timing/the ability to read blocking & know where the hole is gonna be?
 
Crimson Hawk said:
Ha! It's been a long time since we've been able to open a hole big enough for a small rat to squeeze through!

This leads to a question that maybe some of the more knowledgeable can answer. How much of a RB's success is size/ability, and how much depends on timing/the ability to read blocking & know where the hole is gonna be?
Click to expand...

I will say there are 4 keys to being a great RB. In no order to relevance: 1. Power 2. Speed 3. Vision 4. Balance

You can look back at all the greatest RB's of all time and not many had all 4 but most had enough of all of these characteristics to make him great. One of the greatest assets a Barry Sanders, Emmitt Smith and Walter Peyton possesed was a supreme vision on the field. They could see the play before it happened and knew exactly when the holes would open or close down. Now of course they all possessed great athletic ability but it was their vision on the field that made them legends.
 
Montoya Madden is who I was thinking about. The guy was 5'7" and about 225 lbs. Decent speed but very powerful and a low center of gravity. Very tough to tackle. They'd put him late in the game to just pound the opposing D. Maybe this kid could do the same.
 
Crimson Hawk said:
Ha! It's been a long time since we've been able to open a hole big enough for a small rat to squeeze through!

This leads to a question that maybe some of the more knowledgeable can answer. How much of a RB's success is size/ability, and how much depends on timing/the ability to read blocking & know where the hole is gonna be?
Click to expand...

I would say it's a healthy balance of all the abilities you mentioned. A player with supreme athletic abilities could compensate for lesser vision and timing just as a player with only decent athletic ability could enhance his play with superior vision and timing. The truly great ones have both the athletic ability and the intangibles. A lot of a RBs success also hinges on the caliber of players around him so depending on the situation I could see instances where both kinds of backs could be successful.
 
one of the most underated abilities is vision. Emmit Smith is a perfect example. The guy could follow blockers like nobodys business. He'd just skip, hop his way through the front and before you knew it he was in the secondary.
 
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