Kyren
Williams.
Kyren
Williams.
Notre Dame· 5'9"· 194 lb· 4.65s 40
Williams is a 207-pound back who plays with patience and contact balance rather than long speed. He presses the line, waits for the crease and then cuts once with his shoulders square, which is how he put up 1,125 yards on 5.3 a carry as a sophomore and 1,002 more the next season.
What separated him from every other Day 3 back in the class was the third-down work. He is one of the best pass-protecting college backs of his cycle, willing to step into a blitzing linebacker and land the strike, and he caught 77 passes in two seasons as a real route runner out of the backfield. The 4.65 forty is the honest limitation: he does not pull away from anybody, and long runs come from angles, not from separation.
Outside and mid zone running game that asks the back to press the line, read the second-level defender and make one decisive cut, paired with a passing game that keeps him on the field on third down.
Year 1: third-down back and change-of-pace runner. Ceiling: full workload three-down starter who never leaves the field.
A power gap scheme that wants a 225-pound back to grind through interior contact on 25 carries a game without a passing-down role.
He never had to leave the field, and that is the entire value proposition.
SHIFTY Playmaker: RB Kyren Williams Highlights
Full Notre Dame reel covering the vision, contact balance and receiving work.
Notre Dame RB Kyren Williams' 2020 Regular Season Highlights
Conference-produced cut of his ACC Rookie of the Year season.
Kyren Williams 2021 Notre Dame Highlights
Junior-season reel including the 91-yard touchdown run against North Carolina.
Williams was a three-star recruit from St. Louis who enrolled early at Notre Dame, played the first four games of 2019 and then sat out the rest to preserve eligibility. He won the starting job the following August and never gave it back.
The 2020 season was the breakout: 211 carries for 1,125 yards and thirteen touchdowns, 35 catches for 313 yards, and a clean sweep of ACC Rookie of the Year and ACC Offensive Rookie of the Year honors plus second-team all-conference. In 2021 he added 204 carries for 1,002 yards and fourteen scores with 42 receptions for 359 yards and three more, earning second-team All-American recognition before declaring for the draft and opting out of the Fiesta Bowl.
Then the combine happened. A 4.65 forty at 5-foot-9 1/4 and 194 pounds is bottom-tier for a running back, and the 32-inch vertical and 9-foot-8 broad jump offered no explosion to argue with it. The tape showed a complete three-down player, the testing showed a backup, and the league sided with the stopwatch. He went 164th overall to the Rams, the fifteenth running back off the board.
- 01
Pass protection
genuinely elite for a college back, willing and technically sound against blitzing linebackers, which is the skill that earns third-down snaps.
- 02
Receiving
77 catches for 672 yards over his last two seasons as a real route runner, not just a checkdown option out of the backfield.
- 03
Vision and patience
presses the line and lets blocks develop, producing 5.3 yards per carry as a first-year starter behind an inconsistent front.
- 04
Contact balance
runs through arm tackles at 207 pounds and consistently falls forward, with 2,127 rushing yards across two seasons as the workhorse.
- 05
Production and honors
ACC Rookie of the Year, second-team All-ACC and second-team All-American, a back who carried a Notre Dame offense two years running.
- 01
Long speed
a 4.65 forty and 1.57 ten-yard split mean he is caught from behind on runs that should be touchdowns at the NFL level.
- 02
Explosive testing
a 32-inch vertical and 9-foot-8 broad jump confirm he lacks the burst to create yardage that the blocking does not give him.
- 03
Size
5-foot-9 1/4 and 194 pounds at the combine raised real questions about whether he could carry a 250-touch workload.
- 04
Home run ability
only two runs longer than 65 yards in his college career, so his production depends entirely on volume and efficiency rather than chunk plays.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.65sp50
- Vertical
- 32inp50
- Broad jump
- 116inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Att | Yds | TD | Rec | RecYds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Notre Dame | 4 | 4 | 26 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| 2020 | Notre Dame | — | 211 | 1125 | 13 | 35 | 313 |
| 2021 | Notre Dame | — | 204 | 1002 | 14 | 42 | 359 |
| Career | — | 4 | 419 | 2153 | 27 | 78 | 675 |
Rushing and receiving lines come from ESPN's college splits and sum exactly to the career totals shown. The 2019 games played figure is confirmed in his biography, which states he appeared in the first four games and then sat out the remainder to preserve a year of eligibility. Games played for 2020 and 2021 are not published in the sources consulted and are left blank rather than estimated; he opted out of the Fiesta Bowl after the 2021 regular season. Return production, including 151 punt return yards in 2021, is not part of this table.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Third-down specialist whose pass protection and route work keep him on the field regardless of carry share.
Undersized back with average testing who becomes a full-workload starter on the strength of receiving and protection.
Productive college back whose lack of speed limits him to rotational and practice squad work in the NFL.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The Rams got a Pro Bowler in the fifth round. Williams broke a foot in June of his rookie year and then sprained a high ankle on the first kick return of the season opener, limiting him to 35 carries across ten games. In 2023 he supplanted Cam Akers in Week 2 and turned into a star: 228 carries for 1,144 yards and twelve touchdowns in only twelve games, plus 32 catches, earning a Pro Bowl nod and second-team All-Pro honors.
He has not slowed down. He carried 316 times for 1,299 yards and fourteen scores in 2024, then went for 1,252 yards and ten touchdowns on 259 carries in 2025 while catching 36 passes. Through five seasons he has 3,834 rushing yards, 36 rushing touchdowns, 111 receptions and eight receiving scores. Ball security has been the one persistent flaw, with five fumbles in 2024, but the rest of the evaluation aged badly for everyone who ranked the forty ahead of the tape. Fourteen running backs went before him and most of them are no longer starters.