Williams followed Franchione to UA

The play was called 55 Smoke Draw, and Shaud Williams still remembers his reaction every time he heard it called.

“My eyes would just light up and I would get real excited,” the former University of Alabama running back said.

That play wasn’t called too often on a September night when Williams played at Arkansas as a junior. It just seemed that way. Williams ran for 111 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries, almost all of them on the delayed draw play, in a 30-12 victory.

“The people in Arkansas don’t like those words,” Williams said. “I’ve heard if you say that in Arkansas, people still go to the ground.”

The play was a perfect fit for Williams, and Williams was a perfect fit for Alabama’s head coach at the time, Dennis Franchione. Without Franchione, the 5-foot-7, 193-pound Williams never would have ended up at Alabama, and that makes Williams the definitive player of the Franchione era at UA.

Franchione recruited Williams out of high school while the coach was still at TCU, but Williams opted for Texas Tech. When he looked to transfer after his sophomore season, Franchione had just landed the job at UA.

“It just so happened that he had just got the job (at Alabama) in the spring and I was looking to transfer,” Williams said.

Williams sat out his first season with the Crimson Tide under NCAA transfer rules, so he was part of the team but didn’t play in Franchione’s first year at UA.

By the fourth game of his junior season, his first on the field at Alabama, Williams had overtaken Santonio Beard as the lead running back. By season’s end, Williams had amassed 921 yards and five touchdowns, averaging 7.1 yards per carry and 70.8 yards per game. He topped that as a senior under head coach Mike Shula (after Franchione’s departure), running for 1,367 yards and 14 touchdowns for a 105.2-yard average per game.

Reach Tommy Deas at tommy.deas@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0224.