Ryan Williams took college football by storm at 17, drawing immediate Julio Jones comparisons. But his 2025 campaign told an entirely different story. Burdened by massive expectations, his production dipped. Now, Williams, an electric playmaker, is returning with an extra dozen pounds of muscle to rewrite his narrative.

“You gotta ask David Ballou (Director of Sports Performance for Alabama football),” Ryan Williams said when the reporter asked how many pounds of muscle you added this spring. “Man, just really, just focusing in on the program pointer to me, and trying to get bigger, you know, because, you know, there’s a lot of leaks that I can from my freshman year to now, so being able to sustain throughout the entire season and be consistent, that’s really the main goal.”

When Ryan Williams first rolled into Tuscaloosa as a freshman, he was a bit on the leaner side, weighing in around 155 to 160 pounds. After his breakout year, Williams jacked up to 170 pounds. Now entering 2026 spring practice, the official roster at 247Sports shows he’s jumped from 170 pounds to a much more about 182 pounds.

The reporter doubled down and asked whether he had noticed a difference in practice this spring.

Ryan Williams didn’t mince words: “Though, being a little bigger for sure, you know, like, like I said, leaning into a couple more guys, you know, filling my traps, you know, my shoulder fast, sitting, sitting right, you know, you can see my muscles on a big screen.”

The coaching staff, including Kalen DeBoer, is loving the progress. And he’s excited about how the physical growth matches Ryan’s new mental maturity. DeBoer noted that after a somewhat “bumpy” sophomore season where Ryan struggled with a 13.2% drop rate (he actually led the entire country in dropped passes, finishing the season with 13 drops), he has used this offseason to undergo a total “hard reset”.

Those dropped passes weren’t entirely about bad hands. Opposing SEC defensive backs routinely out-muscled him at the line of scrimmage last fall. Adding those 12 pounds of armor gives Williams the play strength to fight through press coverage and secure contested catches. Ryan Williams has now moved a bit into a leadership role. The word is, he’s acting as a mentor to younger receivers like freshman Cederian Morgan.

Along with some muscle-ups, he’s made some other big changes. He officially added his mother’s last name to become Ryan Coleman-Williams and switched his jersey from No. 2 to No. 1, the number he wore as a five-star recruit at Saraland High School. He explained that his mother, Tiffany Coleman, is his best friend, and he wanted to represent her legacy as he writes his own. The real question is, can he make his own legacy after the slump? To judge that, let’s see how he balled at the spring game.

Ryan Williams spring performance

Kalen DeBoer had nothing but praise for Ryan Coleman-Williams after the A-Day spring scrimmage: “Ryan’s consistency was something all spring long that I know he should be feeling good about,” DeBoer said. “But Ryan’s expectations are just like all of ours. He expects an elite performance. He is going to continue to grind, and he is a leader for us on our football team. And he can be because he works as hard as anyone who is out there, so it is paying off and showing up.”

In the scrimmage, Coleman-Williams had a strong performance. He caught three passes for 59 yards for the Crimson Tide. He made tough catches in traffic and also caught passes down the field. Most importantly, he did not drop any passes. He did have one mistake late in the scrimmage. He slipped during a route, and the pass from quarterback Keelon Russell was intercepted by cornerback Dijon Lee. Even with that play, coaches still felt he had a good day.

Coleman-Williams said he has improved by just enjoying the game and having fun playing football. Alabama will finish spring practice this week and then prepare for its season opener against East Carolina on September 5 at Bryant-Denny Stadium.