I usually start my articles with some sort of preamble, whether that entails setting up some line of argument or establishing an angle from which I intend to evaluate a player, but I’m not going to do much of that today. If you want some statistical frame of reference for the content of this piece, I’d suggest reading the rushing efficiency data-focused article I wrote on Miyan Williams early last month, but the focus here will be on the insights gleaned from my recent film sessions spent studying the Ohio State runner.

Back in the winter, I watched and charted two of Williams’ games while thinking he might declare for the NFL Draft, but he didn’t and I subsequently put his tape on the backburner. I returned to him in the last week, have since watched five more games for a grand total of 67 charted carries, and am now pretty confident with the grasp I have of his abilities. Let’s explore what that film-study process revealed.

I’ll start with the worst thing my charting says about Williams: he grades out as a mediocre gap runner. These plays don’t account for a very large portion of the total work he’s handled so far in college -- Pro Football Focus says that just 28.6% of his rushing attempts in 2021 and 2022 were on gap plays, Sports Info Solutions has him at 16.6%, and I marked 25.4% of the carries I watched as coming on gap runs -- and the impact he makes as a decision-maker on them is relatively small. Given the environment in which he plays, that makes some sense. PFF graded Ohio State’s offensive line as the fourth- and fifth-best run-blocking unit in the country in the last two seasons, respectively, and Football Outsiders’ Line Yards metric rated them as a top-seven group in both of those years. By the nature of gap runs, choices for the runner are limited, an effect that would be even stronger when playing behind an offensive line that mows over defensive fronts and creates clean lanes through designed gaps.

Perhaps partially due to those factors, Williams scores lowly both overall -- his 0.35 aggregate grade is well below the population average of 0.49 among 23 runners for whom I’ve charted a significant amount of carries -- and in most individually graded categories on gap runs, but his rate of negatively-graded plays is the fifth-lowest and his rate of neutrally-graded plays the third-highest amount that same group. In other words, he’s not screwing up a lot, he’s just passively working with what his offensive line blocks for him, an approach that has resulted in a per-carry average of 5.75 yards over the last two seasons that slightly falls short of the 6.03 mark collectively produced by the other Buckeye backs in the same time period.

One positive element of that approach, however, is Williams’ patience. Whether on counter, power, or trap, the 5’9 and 226-pound bowling ball does a good job of pacing behind pullers and hesitating in the backfield just long enough for blocks to reach their targets before he accelerates into open space. The sample is relatively small (just 17 gap runs), but the rate at which Williams positively exhibits patience on those plays is second-best among runners I’ve studied, tied with Kendre Miller and behind only Sean Tucker. The other five decision-making categories that I grade on a play-to-play basis saw Williams earn below-average marks on gap runs.

On zone runs, though, Williams is actively good. Since 2021, his 6.91-yard per-carry average on those plays outpaces the per-attempt output of the other Ohio State runners by 1.20 yards (a mark that would land in the 77th percentile among eventual NFL draftees if it were his total and career number), and despite “contending” with a dominant offensive line that limited the level of multiple-choice work that Williams had to do behind the line of scrimmage, Williams earned a total grade of 0.62 on zone runs that ranks slightly above the population average (and just ahead of guys like Zach Charbonnet, Braelon Allen, and Bijan Robinson). His vision graded out right at the population mean as well (though my subjective opinion is that Williams is pretty good in this area), and what I think is Williams’ biggest strength -- at least in regards to the softer or more technical areas of running back play -- manifested itself here in a big way.

With the third-highest composite grade and the fifth-lowest rate of neutrally-graded plays among backs I’ve studied -- a combination that indicates frequent positive impact -- Williams’ tracking on zone runs is arguably the most impressive I’ve seen from anyone not named Deuce Vaughn. The 179-pound Vaughn’s game is built around this skill, perhaps out of necessity, as he uses his small frame to his advantage in squeezing through tight holes, scraping right off the backs of lineman in transitioning through cuts, and slaloming in and out of interior congestion in ways that most running back frames don’t allow for. Williams isn’t quite that nimble, but he’s almost astonishingly so given his bruiser body type. He earned a whopping four positive tracking grades on just 11 zone runs in the 2021 game against Purdue that I watched, offering a masterclass in pressing the line of scrimmage and using crisp footwork, good spatial awareness, and a surprisingly smooth movement style to navigate around blocks and transition upfield. Here are the four plays on which he earned those grades:

Another thing you’ll notice on those runs is Williams’ propensity to spin, bounce, shake, and otherwise fight his way through and away from contact, an ability that has made him arguably the most effective bully-ball runner in nearly the last decade of college football:

Results from my film-charting process indicate similar things. Williams’ overall rate of powering through contact trails only those of Zach Charbonnet and Roschon Johnson among backs I’ve studied, and while his success against defensive backs specifically is just slightly above average, he ranks top-five against defensive lineman (with a score of 0.38 that nearly triples the population mean of 0.13) and trails only Johnson (while more than quintupling the average of 0.11) against linebackers:

Williams is also somewhat unique among great through-contact backs that I’ve studied in that he both a) doesn’t incur a lot of direct hits, and b) is elusive. Of the top eight runners (which represents a pretty clean top tier) in terms of overall power against all types of defensive players, Williams joins Charbonnet and Zach Evans as the only backs who also possess significantly above-mean marks in success rate of attempted evasive maneuvers, and of those three, Williams is the only one whose mark in Contact Solidity is not substantially above the population average:

Basically, Williams is a powerful runner whose ferocity and contact balance are complemented by agility and a tool-kit of dead legs, spins, and jukes that are effective at both reducing contact and making defenders miss completely.

In all, those physical capabilities offset a lack of long speed and allow Williams to make the most of his opportunities both in interior traffic and the second level of defenses. Especially on zone runs, the Buckeye is a sound and positively-impactful decision-maker with the behind-the-line-of-scrimmage navigational abilities of a much smaller back, and the efficiency marks he’s produced thus far in his career speak for themselves. Given those numbers and the way he grades out on film, I don’t think it’s a hot take to say that Williams has been a better runner to date than a more highly-touted teammate in TreVeyon Henderson, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see him end up as a starting NFL back despite having shared touches throughout his college career. As campus2canton.com’s consensus RB30, I think there’s still significant juice to squeeze out of his current value in devy leagues.