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    • How Ryan Williams helped Alabama football get past Georgia
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    How Ryan Williams helped Alabama football get past Georgia

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    All Alabama football quarterback Jalen Milroe wanted to do was give Ryan Williams a chance.

    Trailing by a point with less than three minutes to go, Milroe saw the one-on-one matchup he wanted with Williams, who had already exploited the Georgia secondary with a bobbled circus catch for 54 yards in the third quarter. Milroe faced the safety, threw a pass with Williams to the field side and gave him a chance to make the play of his young life.

    However, Williams, only 17, did not feel the pressure. He had done his homework. He knew the equation.

    “He knows four plus two equals six,” Williams said. “I know four plus two equals six.”

    Milroe wears jersey No. 4. Williams wears No. 2. They calculated it.

    Williams jumped past Georgia defensive back Julian Humphrey, grabbed the reception, retreated behind diving defensive back KJ Bolden and took off running, going 75 yards for a score to lift Alabama to a 41-34 lead it would not lose against the No. 1 Bulldogs.

    “I knew everyone, across the board, anyone could have made that play,” Williams said. “So I just ran my route to win. And I knew my boys were too.”

    Saturday was Williams’ coming out party in the SEC. He finished with six catches on seven targets for 177 yards and a 75-yard touchdown reception from Milroe. But it was nothing new for Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer.

    Williams, he said, is “ahead of his time,” as one of two freshmen who sealed Alabama’s victory, along with defensive back Zabien Brown, who had the game-winning interception.

    “They’ve played enough snaps now where there’s a belief that not only they have in themselves, but all of us,” DeBoer said. “They’re playmakers, they fight, they grind.”

    But now DeBoer sees Williams as a receiver who has been tested. Instead of taking advantage of lax coverage against Western Kentucky, South Florida and Wisconsin, Williams could be the playmaker “we saw in fall camp,” DeBoer said.

    ‘Age is real’: What makes Alabama freshman Ryan Williams ‘different’

    It was those moments that Williams looked back on, the reason he felt no pressure when Milroe went his way in the biggest moment of his budding college career.

    “I just felt confident the whole time,” Williams said. “He gave me the opportunity, and I just made the play.”

    Confidence doesn’t change Williams’ personality, DeBoer said.

    “He’s going back to work,” DeBoer said. “He’ll be the same guy on Tuesday, and the same guy tomorrow when we show up and do our workouts. I think our team really sees that in him.”

    It’s what Milroe sees in Williams, the receiver he’s connected to on half of his touchdown passes in 2024. For Milroe, Williams has not only been a receiver he wants to give a chance to shine, but one who deserves it.

    “When you have Ryan on the field,” Milroe said, “it’s a one-on-one advantage on our side.”

    Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him out [email protected] or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter.

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